DIY: Bose Touring Stereo (NON NAV) iPod Interface Upgrade: iSimple Media Gateway

Originally Posted by Augustus

Gateway received and installed. +1 for the instructions. Truly excellent write-up. This should be stickied. Kudos.

A few of notes...

1) How do you remove the shift knob? Yes, I have a MT. I tried to unscrew mine and it wouldn't budge. Rather than forcing it, I gave up and just worked around it. Doable, yes, but not quite as easy. (Edit: Nevermind, found a few threads where people are talking about difficulties removing their shift knob. Apparently not so simple.)

2) I ran the cable to the glovebox too. I tried to gently pull the glovebox out per the instructions, but unfortunately when it finally came loose, I had to use so much force that I pulled it out completely, which disconnected the tethering strap. Doh. That was a PITA. I managed to re-connect it and get the glovebox back in place. Don't want to do that again

3) Hooked it all up, tested it, worked fine. Put the dash back together, fired it up again - no Satellite, no iPod. Damnit. Had to take it all back apart again. The iPod connection cable had come loose at the interface, apparently when I tucked the cables back there. Fixed, put things back more carefully the second time around.

4) While I did have to do the airbag trick to extinguish the light, I didn't have to re-teach the windows. Even after an hour of no battery, they 'remembered' their settings - the auto up/down & door open/close blip worked just fine. Likewise, much to my surprise, the radio remembered all of my presets and the Homelink mirror was still able to control my garage door. Nice. The only things that appear to have reset are my display preferences (shift light, maintenance reminders, gauge backlight brightness, etc) and the clock.

5) Do you guys sometimes have a hard time selecting iPod vs. Satellite? It seems like sometimes I have to toggle back and forth between AM/FM & SAT+Track-Up several times before it allows me to chose the source. Is there a trick I'm missing? Or is it just a bit laggy here sometimes? More practice is needed.

6) I am happy to report that Pandora does work. Sort of. I have to select the channel on the iPhone itself, but it does send the sound through the gateway AND it displays the artist/track info on the head unit. Super cool. But, unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a way to control the "station" or even skip tracks.

But anyways, it was worth the $100 and a couple hours of my time. Sound quality is excellent, and no more cables strewn about the cabin. But I am a little disappointed in the amount of lag between selecting songs or playlists. It takes 1-2 seconds between every input for it to respond, which can take quite a while to scroll through an artist playlist.

My Z's is now a very expensive iPod dock.