Maintenance/improvement Tips - 4.3 - Parrot Mki9100

[James..]

Difficulty - Medium/Easy

Time - A couple of hours

Tools - trim tool Example here (worth getting as you'll see below!)

10mm socket and driver, 22mm hole cutting bit (I used a woodworking one) and cordless drill

Zip ties, Scissors and wire clippers

You'll also be needing one Parrot Mki9100 kit and a Parrot ISO to Toyota adapter (aka SOT adapter) (Audioleads SOT-062). Mine was from Dynamic Sounds in London for about £8.

Introduction

This post describes how I fitted the Parrot Mki9100 interface to my 07 RAV 4.3 fitted with a standard CD changer stereo. The Parrot is available currently (March '10) for around £120. It is an excellent quality bluetooth hands free. For me, the key selling points were its additional music capabilities. If you have a phone that can stream in stereo via bluetooth, then this device will relay this audio through the stereo as well as control the phone remotely. For those of you who aren't so much into bluetooth audio as me, the unit has got an Ipod interface, USB interface and a conventional 3.5mm stereo Aux-In plug.

Note: Although I know a bit about electronics that doesn't mean that this is the only or indeed the best way of doing this install. There is plenty of scope to move things around as you see fit, provided you make sure you route around airbags and any other essential kit. The remote control for the unit is especially easy as it is entirely wireless!

Procedure

First disconnect the Battery, take the stereo out and the glovebox out. To do this, follow Anchorman's exemplary coverage of the Ipod interface install.

here

I was a bit perplexed to how to get the glovebox out as both Anchorman and the Toyota instructions describe: the secret is that the damper can be pulled off the side of the 'box' directly (to your left as you look at it on a RHD drive car) with no ill effects like this: I don't know if that makes it any clearer!

So, once you have everything apart, you need to locate the microphone. Now for my money I prefer to mount this on the A pillar to get it close to the driver: others like to mount the mic directly in front of the speedo pointing through the steering wheel. Anyway, here's the routing for this position:

As you can see the dual microphone fits nicely with its base under the trim edging holding it in place. Once you are happy with the location you can remove the sticky on the bottom of the base to fix in place. You can then push the wiring out of the way so that it is hidden behind the rubber trim edging all the way down the edge of the door. This keeps it away from the airbags. Eventually tidying the wire away you'll arrive at the base of the trim:

Next you need to break out your trusty trim removal tool (and IMHO it does pay to get one as I always find screwdrivers covered in tape tend to accidentally scratch when you don't expect it.) and gently prise the trim apart and prod the wire in behind the trim

Next you can route this out of harms way over the top of the car interface connector

Finally you need to route the cable back into the main stereo compartment. So, reach for your trim tool and hook the plug into the end of the tool like this:

Now all you need to do is do a bit of wiggling with the trim, threading the tool in the right direction: it looks like this when you've inserted it in the dash with wire attached:

Now you can look into the stereo compartment and spotting the end of the tool, reach in and fish the cable out. You can see the blue end of the trim tool from the stereo compartment like this: sorry forgot to turn the flash on!

And voila, we're done, the microphone plug is on the right. Remember when you plug this into the Parrot Blue box that it has a locking position and should be twisted to lock in place.

Next we need to do some drilling to install the multi-audio adapter lead (that's the funky one that has a big grommet on it and Ipod/USB/Aux adapters. This bit of the procedure is the same as the Ipod interface, except I was using a smaller drill bit as the Parrot grommet is 22mm. Some pictures below...

The hole..

The drill - make a bit of a mess with the plastic..

The grommet from below.

The audio adapter cable in situ. You can use the scissors at this point to cut the mat to your taste.

Next we need to locate the Parrot display unit lead. As I wanted to put this next to the steering wheel, I used the trim tool to nudge the wire into the best location.

This is its final resting place in the trim... This seems to be a juncture that causes minimal deformation to the trim with a wire routed there.

Now we need to plug all the SOT leads in to the existing harness and plug everything into the Parrot blue box...

For the sake of cleanliness I trim down the Parrot Line out leads with the wire clipper as these are not needed in this install. (Leaving some wire for possible reconnection)

The mute line is number one, as per below. All the other plugs in the loom can only fit in one place so you have to be pretty dumb not to get this bit right

Now, to secure the blue box. The previous owner had a Toyota Nokia kit fitted and I spent some time removing the wiring for this: the control box had been fixed with a sticky pad which had come undone so it was floating around. As the Parrot box is very light, I prefer to use zip ties to attach it to something. First zip tie the box itself.

Then secure directly under the main stereo

Finally you can reassemble everything and test. Don't forget to plug in all the leads you removed as well as those from the new SOT harness.

You will need to put the button Battery in the remote control and stick down the display in your chosen location. You can also put the remote control on the steering wheel if you so wish as the necessary fitments are in the kit. I chose to stick it below the display like this:

With the display removed and the remote removed it looks like this.

As I did the install today, it will be a little while before I have had a chance to check out all of its qualities, but it seems to be a good unit. I'll post a review when I get the time!

cheers!

[daviep.sco]

Almost the same install as me, however I put the mic up next to the rear view mirror and led it down the side of the screen. You can also fit the remote to the wheel, i put mine down the bottom left side of the wheel and it doesn't get in the way of things.

[James..]

Almost the same install as me, however I put the mic up next to the rear view mirror and led it down the side of the screen. You can also fit the remote to the wheel, i put mine down the bottom left side of the wheel and it doesn't get in the way of things.

You're braver than me :) - I looked at that , but couldn't figure a way of routing it easily through the headlining.

Been playing with it today, I found that the remote is effectively near the end of my left knee so easy to locate without looking for it - I might put try on the wheel for fun! I really like the music navigation functions - with the USB plugged in you get artist/music/track info etc but I find the screen a bit dim in bright sunlight. I think I might sell my Sony MEX BT2700 Stereo (which has bluetooth) in my other car and revert to OEM stereo with another one of these as I like it so much!

[anchorman]

Nice tutorial James. I pinned it for future reference.

[The Cav]

i have the parrot ck3100 supplied and fitted in my avensis

for £149 INC THE LEAD FOR THE RADIO

an absolute bargain

£149 for piece of mind and a clean licence

[James..]

@Anchorman: thanks! Glad you liked it!

@Cav, The CK3100 is good - in fact I think the display visibility may be better than the funky one on the 9100, but you don't get all the fun music functions. The install described here is pretty much the same for the CK3100 - I put one in my last car. You just don't need to do any drilling in the glove box for the special audio connectors that the 9100 has.