Transporter

Cruising Intro My first car, an Audi A4 1.8t SE B6, and a year spent living in the states had got me rather used to having cruise control. When trying to maintain speed on long drives with rolling hills or variable speed limits, make it almost invaluable and at a few quid short of £100 it seemed almost rude not to get cruise control for my T5. Comatibility To fit cruise control you need to get the correct kit for your year of van (T5 and T5.1 are slightly different), LH/RH drive and whether you have a MFD or not.  Other limitations are that you must have electric windows which means your J519 BCM Body control ECU will be of the correct spec. A quick check for this is to either check the part number is compatable (eg. my BCM '7H0 937 049 T' is compatible) or simply check the 'F plug' socket has pins in it. Finally it is rarely mentioned but you need to have a rear wiper and washer as most of the control modules are for vehicles with a rear wiper. If not ...

Choices The standard head unit on the T5 is a fairly uninspiring lump reminiscent of my first Audi's Concert II. It is admittedly functional and the previous owner had added a parrot blue tooth and ipod dock to spice things up. I do not own an ipod however and the parrot doesn't stream music so it was definitely stuck in the naughties. There is a huge collection of after market head unit options available for this van requiring some serious review reading to pick out a winner. I was keen to keep the OEM look which was somewhat restricting me unless I went for the new shape centre console which would allow me an RNS510. Changing the centre console opened up a quite a few more options including the Kenwood DNX520 which not only offered even more features than the RNS510 and better navigation, it was also designed to work specifically with VW's unlike most other aftermarket head units. I read a mixed bag of reviews for this and the later 521 complaining about poor pe...