Edd W

I am not sure, I never asked the previous owner - I guess he just did a lot of travelling alone and wanted lots of CD's to choose from?

I am not sure if it is the newer MP3 compatable unit - visually it looks the same - I will pull it to have a look over the weekend.

Jake-AudiUSAParts

4E0-057-785-B AMI unit by its self $619.99 in stock. New OEM.

Edd W

Thanks Jake but I am in England so I think I will have to source locally.

tarasgrosh

ModestW12: your car is stunning, I read your previous posts and emailed the gentelman you mentioned. Unfortunately, he has nothing available @ the moment. Thank you for you detailed write ups, I do not need the Bluetooth option. I would rather link my iPhone directly to the mmi and then stream that way; is that possible?

Moreover, my dealer did not have the users manual/cd handbook, so my references are you gents! With that, is there a phone adapter/hook up under my armrests?

Finally, I will purchasing a vag-com/VCS unit with Bentley manual. Is that the proper approach?

Thank you all

Brozee

Cheapest and the option that makes the most sense is: keep one cd player, and get a AMI unit for the other side. Then just use the ipod cable and your done. The bluetooth streaming is blahh just download your music and put it on your ipod!

Edd W

That is what I am planning - except I will probably just use it with the USB cable and use a memory stick or portable 2 1/2" drive.

mishar

Why don't you test those changers with MP3 disc. If one of them works with it you can load like 70 hours of music in it. Do you need more?

subit0

You might want to check out this ebay item:

A8L Man

I will be selling my 4 month old OEM AMI ipod unit for cheap, pm me if interested.

ModestW12

Thank you for the complement. If I could also own my dream S8, I would go for your S8's color as well, along with a black/white interior and black alcantara headliner and carbon fiber trim. Per the previous post, A8L Man is selling his AMI. In another thread he mentioned he is going back to MB. I makes sense to sell it separately as you don't get what you paid for in trade in or bluebook for AMI.

Prior to the owning the Bluetooth dongle, I used to directly connect my iPhone to the AMI using an AMI iPod cable (included with my AMI kit). I had also bought an extension for the iPod cable off of amazon.com so there was enough length to keep the iPhone in the ashtray compartment for easy access to navigating Pandora, which at the time worked with a physical AMI connection. Apple has since tweaked things so that if your iPhone is physically connected, the iPod app keep starting over no matter how many times you quit it and start Pandora or another music app. As of now if you want to listen to music, streaming or not, from another app besides the iPod app you will need a Bluetooth dongle.

Without a Bluetooth dongle, you will only be able play just your music library, so ideally you'd want to buy a dedicated iPod. Connecting the iPhone each time you get in the car to the AMI is a hassle. AMI doesn't remember where you left off. Instead, every time you plug it back in it starts playing the first alphabetical song. So you have to click through a bunch of menus to select your music every time you reconnect the iPhone. If you can afford an S8, you should just spend $100-150 for a 80 or 160 GB iPod off of craigslist and have your entire library in your car in 100% CD quality (Apple lossless codec as I mentioned before). With a dedicated iPod, AMI will remember where you left off and you won't deal with the hassle of reaching over, plugging in, waiting for the connection to initialize, and clicking through menus to get back to your music.

The Bluetooth dongle solves a portion of the problem as the iPhone remembers where you left of in either the iPod app or Pandora but you don't get track listings or navigation throught MMI (besides pause, next track, and previous track, and possibly fast forward/rewind, can't remember) and the quality of the music is degraded as the Bluetooth A2DP connection is lossy compression.

You might be able to find a manual set on eBay, I think there is one for the whole car and one specifically for the MMI. There might be a few useful bits of information in the manuals you won't find on this board (programing the Homelink, etc.).

The baseplate under the armrests is for this:
http://oemplus.com/index.php?main_pa...roducts_id=685

I bought one. I've never noticed a difference in signal strength using the iPhone hidden menu that displays the cellular signal strength in dB. However, IIRC it sampled the dB ever 10 or so seconds so it was hard to tell as it would somewhat fluctuate docked or undocked. If anyone knows of an app that displays signal dB in real time, I would be happy to test it again.

I paid ~$200 for the convenience and the OEM integration but in day to day use it's a bit of a hassle to insert it in and out of armrest dock. It charges the iPhone but so does a connection to the AMI or a $20 cigarette lighter charger. I often find myself forgetting the phone in the car when I insert it into the dock. However someone disciplined enough to change their habit easily or someone more on top of it mentally might not have the same problem.

Yes, with VCDS, you can enable keyfob window operation though I hardly use it, partially because this isn't my daily driver and I have the solar sunroof option. You can lower your car (which I have done to stock sport package / S8 ride height). Some on this board have gone lower. You can disable seatbelt chime, which I have done. I always wear my seatbelt driving and don't need the annoying chime when parked or working in the car with the seatbelt unbuckled. You would need it to change rear brake pads and possibly the battery (some say otherwise). Also you can scan for fault codes anytime help to check the health of your car.

Bentley, again I would say yes but you might not use it that much if you bought a warranty with your car and Audi's prepaid service or extended service (which is arguably a good value for S8/W12 unlike the 4.2's, costs same for all D3's.). Also depends on how mechanically savvy you are and/or what resources you have at your disposal (tools, workspace, friends/family that are good at working on cars).