2002 S8, armrest phone - Am I missing something?

Hi Guys,

Just bought myself an S8, after 6 years of owning 4.2L A8s (2 of them: a ming blue one initially, and more recently a green one of the 'Sport' variety).

A few pics of the new motor:








The car has a RNS-D unit fitted, and a Nokia phone adaptor was fitted inside the armrest. I have an old Nokia 6310i that I'd like to use as a semi-permanent car phone, so it would be nice if I could make it work with the existing connections to make use of the charging facility and factory-fitted external aerial.

The Nokia adaptor that came with the car was for a different/smaller model, but I already had a Cullmann adaptor for the Nokia 6310i that I purchased a while ago in the hope of making it work with one of my previous A8s (turned out to have the wrong socket though, so it was never used).

With the adaptor in place and plugged it, if I dock the phone it recognises that it is docked (the car/hands-free symbol appears on the display, the earpiece is muted, and it begins charging), but no sound comes through the car's speakers when I dial. Is there something else I need to do or buy?

The previous owner fitted a Parrot unit, which will work with the phone, via Bluetooth, if I un-dock it. However, as soon as I dock the phone to charge it and make use of the external aerial, it refuses to connect via Bluetooth because it recognises that it is already connected to a wired hands-free unit.

Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated

[Oli18]

Hi moltuae,

We've been keeping an eye on autotrader on the car you've just purchased....stunning example so congrats!

I may be wrong but i think you can on have 1 car kit hooked up to the car's sound...i'm sure Ian will be able to give more in-depth advice though.

Welcome and enjoy the forum...there are some great chaps here with immense knowledge of these beasts!

Oli

Thanks Oli

Yeah, she's a beauty!

It's taken me 6 years to find a good affordable one. The car's not perfect - it's got some minor faults, mainly due to a lack of TLC, which it will no longer be short of.

The mileage is relatively low though, at just short of 90K, and she drives like new. The gearbox (which is always a worry, of course) seems perfect, and VAG-COM reports no faults

I paid £6350 for her in the end (it was advertised at 7K), which I thought was a fair price (bearing in mind the rarity of these cars). What d'ya think?



So, are you saying that it may be the Parrot unit is that's stopping this from working? ... presumably because the original connection to the RNS-D unit has been taken out in order to connect the Parrot?

Hadn't thought of that ..... I bet you're right!

[IT]

There are two wires into the back of the RNS-D that take the speaker output from the car phone kit and play it out through the Sat Nav stereo speakers.

Whilst you could remove the factory cables to insert the parrot ones, in practise it is far easier to piggy back on the existing cables leaving them in place.

One comment i will make is that the 6310/6210 phones are very similar and considered interchangeable but the 6210 cradle DOES NOT work with a 6310, there are two seperate cradles.... i've had all sorts of weird things happending / not happening if I try to drive a 6310 through a 6210 cradle... check its the right one ?

nice car BTW... I've been looking at it too !!

Thanks very much Ian!

That's given me a lot more to go on. I'll check those

[The_Laird]

Where are you? I've got a 6310i working in my '8. If you're anywhere near Glasgow we could swap the cradle and see if that sorts it. I had problems with mine not charging and the fault was that one of the little pins in the cradle (that connect to the base of the phone) was slightly bent. Enough to make a duff connection. Check these and straighten and bent ones - carefully!

Thanks for the tip and the offer of help IceBlue

I'm about 200 miles south of Glasgow and, though I do love driving the car, it's probably a wee bit too far to go just to test a cradle! lol

Very kind of you to offer though, thanks!

It's encouraging to know someone else has it working with the same phone though. I don't think it's bent pins since the adaptor is new and unused, but I'll check. I suspect someone's disconnected something when the parrot unit was installed. I'm gonna pop the unit out and take a look at the back when I get time.

Got the phone working

Ian, you were right. Those 2 connections are labelled TEL + and TEL -. The original connections had been cut and the Parrot was connected to those two wires, plus TEL MUTE.

Here's the connections label for reference:





The wires had been soldered but not insulated very well (small piece of tape on each that was falling off). So I decided to properly solder and insulate the connections (with heat-shrink sleeving), return the wiring back to standard and remove the Parrot completely - I don't like things stuck to the dash like that anyway.

"This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace!"


So .... the good news is that I now have a working mobile phone cradle; the bad news is, I can't use it 'cause my car broke down the very next day

Spent six hours stuck on the embankment of a dual carriageway in the blazing heat (with no sunblock or shade, so I now look like a rather sore lobster).

Fortunately it's nothing serious ..... The car had a problem with the fuel pump just before I bought it. Looks like either, they didn't fix/replace it properly, or it's failed again.