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@robariz go into your vehicle settings and make certain you have the correct Jaguar Can Bus selected. There are two options. One is for the XF. Functions your describing will appear but will not do anything. You want to make sure you have the XK selected.
There are only two connectors that aren't used. Which on is the third you refer to?
As to the mic, it's not crap so much as where it's located. If you cut and extend the wires, you will see a round receptor on the back side of the facia that holds the mic. Solder in about 8-10 inches of extra wire so you have room to maneuver if you remove the facia.
Any chance you have pics of where this menu is in the settings? I have installed and everything works except climate and seat heating. All simple enough but no joy on these parts just yet.
This setup is supposed to blank the factory TPMS system, right? That's what I was seeing in this thread earlier; but I want to make sure I didn't misunderstand before I start chasing down this awfully coincidentally timed Tire Pressure Monitor System Fault error that popped up on my dashboard on the way home from work today.
Nevermind it went away by itself. To be safe when my new wheels come I'll put TPMS sensors in them anyway.
Originally Posted by SammyDeeIrl
Any chance you have pics of where this menu is in the settings? I have installed and everything works except climate and seat heating. All simple enough but no joy on these parts just yet.
Put mine in yesterday. I thought it was going to be an easy process and the actual radio part was but I ran into a ton of problems getting it the way I wanted it (I wanted the second USB cable run back to the center console, I fruitlessly tried running the microphone up to the factory install location) and some general "car is a bit old" problems (a couple of attachment points for the right center console trim broke when taking them off and had to be mended, the largely-unused screw mounts on the bottom that the factory radio doesn't use disintegrated around the metal when I took the screws out and I needed to come up with an alternate way of attaching the new radio to them) and just plain old mistakes (I pulled the reverse camera wiring through the rubber sleeve the wrong way the first time and tore the cable, so had to buy a new cable and do it all over again).
This default launcher is pretty bad but since this is 99% of the time going to be an Android Auto front end I might just change it to Nova and be done with it. For the reverse camera I bought the same one I've bought on my last 3 installs, and used the licence plate mount to put it right below the trunk button. For power I used an add-a-fuse to the power top circuit and a 3 amp fuse so the camera is always powered when the car is but never when it isn't. I've found doing it so it comes on when you reverse leads to a delay in you actually getting a video.
The wire for the cable was just long enough to run through the wire sleeve from the trunk back to the interior; but if I had to do it again (a third time ) I would have the actual connection of the camera cable and the video/power breakout cable be in that sleeve to be safe. My initial thoughts are that the bass response and lower midrange are substantially better than the Jaguar DSP (which I ran in Dolby mode to try and get some quality out of it), with a much more textured sound. Mine had pre-done DSP settings for time delay that I might fiddle with, but even with the equalizer on standard it is a definite improvement. The screen resolution is a fair bit lower than I feel it should be (the PPI probably isn't that different from the factory setup), but in practice you only really notice it when Google Maps is running. My car has heated and cooled seats and heated steering wheel, and the unit controls all of them and (even though it requires multiple touches) does so more responsively than the original unit did even though the Jaguar setup defaulted on that page. I had heard about the issues with glare with this unit so I bought this screen protector, which is about 7mm wider than the visible portion of the screen. I cut the excess length off and removed the metal frame in front of the screen to install it. Seems to have done the job.
I didn't have any interest in the 4G functionality, so I didn't bother installing the antenna for it. There were also a couple more deviations from the install video posted in this thread that either came from the seller I got it from (NaviHua) or simply from more refinement of the system.
As was mentioned by BrianC72gt, when I pulled mine out I did not have this connection to transfer over on the original head unit. If it's somewhere up there, I don't know where it is. I see from this post that the other end appears to be in the trunk connected to whatever that is at the top of part of the MOST loop. I did a cursory check of the FM radio and I was pulling stations, so maybe on 5.0 cars it sends FM data over the MOST loop? I dunno. I haven't listened to FM radio since I left New York 4 years ago so it's not a pressing thing, but if anyone has an answer I would go in and fix it.
My unit was not wired this way. From the seller it had attenuators hard wired into the speaker outputs in addition to the RCA output. I suppose I still could have used either, but I opted to plug into the attenuators instead of the (what I'm assuming are) preamp outputs. This is something I may fiddle with to compare.
Not only do they no longer use this truly horrible looking fake woodgrain, but the connector that plugs into the passenger airbag light/hazard button actually is a real connector designed for that plug and not some breadboard connector you have to break pieces off of to get to fit.
I'm very happy with it so far, and would be even if there wasn't a subsequent increase in audio quality. The original Jaguar unit was, without a doubt, the worst touchscreen interface I had ever used in a car and actively had useability problems not even present in the one I had in the 2003 Cadillac Seville I used to have. For that reason alone I think it should be considered in spite of the expense over the various modifications you can make to the OEM system to make it support Android Auto. The plastiwood is even a reasonable fascimile of the wood my car already had. I still have some fiddling to do with the sound and the various buried menu options and there's some odd behavior I've noticed that I need to investigate, but overall I'm quite pleased indeed.
Should be noted that it's trivial for a cheeky manufacturer to change what the Android version number reports vs actually updating the Android version (for whatever benefit that would give for this application anyway). That's particularly true with these since in my experience with Android head units they all run a "base" Android head unit OS that is then customized for whatever the specific manufacturer is. Poking around in the back end for this reveals a bunch of things that indicate to me that the core system is identical to the old Android Auto system I just replaced in my Elise, right down to the weirdly translated terms that it uses for stuff like amplifier gain settings and an identical launcher. I'm somewhat doubtful that there's actually a difference in OS version vs any of the other "brands" that sell this Jaguar system.
Appreciate you taking the time to do a detailed write up. Reading the successes as well as the struggles is helpful.
So after being completely let down by an AliExpress seller, long story, short version the tracking they gave me was for a completely different customer who appears to have got their item, seems a common(ish) possible scam where they give you the run around until the confirmed tracking auto completes the order unless you raise a dispute.
luckily I screenshot all of the conversation with the seller and UPS to prove I did not recieve the item and what they did send was to a totally different customer, refund was quick and complete and the first major issue I have had with AliExpress in over 5 years and multiple purchases, just stressful as the biggest purchase I have ever made. Anyway piece of mind to anyone that if things appear to have gone wrong you do have the backup of their customer service.
so... I have gone with an 8/256GB unit in the 'Spring Sale' hopefully I will get my item this time! It come with the usual gift of a straightforward reverse camera which I may fit but I have the rear sensors which after reading this thread I may need to add a small speak to.
i have been assured this is the latest model so should work with heated and cooled seats.
i unde1rstamd i will lose the TPMS and on screen diagnostics but I have an OBD2 dongle which will be a superior option for that anyway. I have the B&W system so no rewiring needed for audio.
a couple of questions, if anyone knows the answers Inwould be extremely grateful.
1 - I currently have the Mr12Volt system fitted and working perfectly, I understand the infotainment in the XKR is not mated to the.car so I have the option of selling or swapping (preferably) my oem unit with the Mr12Volt system. Do I need to revert the MOST bypass I have done to standard to enable the new Android system anyway even if I don't sell it?
2. My XKR did not have DAB as standard, does anyone know if I can simply add a USB DAB+ device to the Amdroid unit and enjoy DAB+ from the OEM aerial? They are fairly low cost units and come with a stick on window arial but I rarely use DAB and would prefer Internet Radio via AndroidAuto, I just wondered if anyone knew if the OEM aerial is DAB ready as standard?
Thanks to all for this fantastic thread, it is a great resource of information and I shall be adding my experiences with pictured and videos along with my experiences, both good and bad. I have fitted these units to both my old Suzuki Swift and current Mini Cooper S with great results, yes there are a few niggle with OEM features but nothing that can't be lived with or sorted out via OBD etc.
So after being completely let down by an AliExpress seller, long story, short version the tracking they gave me was for a completely different customer who appears to have got their item, seems a common(ish) possible scam where they give you the run around until the confirmed tracking auto completes the order unless you raise a dispute.
luckily I screenshot all of the conversation with the seller and UPS to prove I did not recieve the item and what they did send was to a totally different customer, refund was quick and complete and the first major issue I have had with AliExpress in over 5 years and multiple purchases, just stressful as the biggest purchase I have ever made. Anyway piece of mind to anyone that if things appear to have gone wrong you do have the backup of their customer service.
so... I have gone with an 8/256GB unit in the 'Spring Sale' hopefully I will get my item this time! It come with the usual gift of a straightforward reverse camera which I may fit but I have the rear sensors which after reading this thread I may need to add a small speak to.
i have been assured this is the latest model so should work with heated and cooled seats.
i unde1rstamd i will lose the TPMS and on screen diagnostics but I have an OBD2 dongle which will be a superior option for that anyway. I have the B&W system so no rewiring needed for audio.
a couple of questions, if anyone knows the answers Inwould be extremely grateful.
1 - I currently have the Mr12Volt system fitted and working perfectly, I understand the infotainment in the XKR is not mated to the.car so I have the option of selling or swapping (preferably) my oem unit with the Mr12Volt system. Do I need to revert the MOST bypass I have done to standard to enable the new Android system anyway even if I don't sell it?
2. My XKR did not have DAB as standard, does anyone know if I can simply add a USB DAB+ device to the Amdroid unit and enjoy DAB+ from the OEM aerial? They are fairly low cost units and come with a stick on window arial but I rarely use DAB and would prefer Internet Radio via AndroidAuto, I just wondered if anyone knew if the OEM aerial is DAB ready as standard?
Thanks to all for this fantastic thread, it is a great resource of information and I shall be adding my experiences with pictured and videos along with my experiences, both good and bad. I have fitted these units to both my old Suzuki Swift and current Mini Cooper S with great results, yes there are a few niggle with OEM features but nothing that can't be lived with or sorted out via OBD etc.
i do like it a lot, but I was debating getting an Android headunit before I got the Mr12Volt and after recently fitting one in my partners Mini Cooper it's persuaded me to go for one in the XKR.
I got a very good deal on the Mr12Volt and equally have got a good price on the Android one now.
Recieved my unit today and got it all installed but no sound? I think I saw mention of this in another post? I have Bowers & Wilkins, the unit came with the RCAs plugged into a kind of an impedance converter, I got sound briefly then nothing? Tried the RCAs in the line in RCAs and again got sound briefly... wondering if the amp needs a signal from the unit? I've messaged the seller.
everything else seems perfect, heating and cooled seats working perfectly, not tried much else
How many jumpers did you use for the MOST system? This fiber optic network carries the sound signal hither & yon looping through several components. Mine, a 2015 Convertible with B&W, required 2 up front and one in the trunk. Did you get the one in the trunk?
Last edited by BrianC72gt; May 4, 2025 at 05:33 PM.
Reason: added image for trunk monkey
How many jumpers did you use for the MOST system? This fiber optic network carries the sound signal hither & yon looping through several components. Mine, a 2015 Convertible with B&W, required 2 up front and one in the trunk. Did you get the one in the trunk?
I only got 2, but I do have a spare that i got with the Mr12Volt so I will try that on the one in the boot. Do i just need to take that cable out and put the jumper on the jumper on the cable or where the cable plugs in?
did you get sound for a few seconds before you added the 3rd one or did you get no sound at all?
Last edited by SpursMadDave; May 4, 2025 at 09:05 PM.
The Mr12Volt system required thr jumper in a different position in the boot, I removed that before ai tried the new headunit and put it back to stock, maybe I will try that too
Had a video call with a technician at the factory in China, very helpful. The problem is with the blue MOST box so they are sending me a different one.
This is the one that came
and this is what they are sending as a replacement
How many jumpers did you use for the MOST system? This fiber optic network carries the sound signal hither & yon looping through several components. Mine, a 2015 Convertible with B&W, required 2 up front and one in the trunk. Did you get the one in the trunk?
I tried using the jumper I had from the Mr12Volt on that connector but it didn't make a difference unfortunately, thanks for the help and glad it worked for your system, which version of blue box are you using XF or XK?
They have said I may need to route a cable from that exact connector to the blue box behind the headunit and are also sending me a long MOST cable but hopefully the blue box itself will solve the audio problem as routing a long cable will be a PITA.
I put the oem unit back in thinking maybe I messed up something while taking it out and putting the new one in but everything works perfectly, Radio, USB and CD, not tried the iPod connection as not sure where I put the connector after I fitted the Mr12Volt 🤔
Last edited by SpursMadDave; May 6, 2025 at 03:43 AM.
Put mine in yesterday. I thought it was going to be an easy process and the actual radio part was but I ran into a ton of problems getting it the way I wanted it (I wanted the second USB cable run back to the center console, I fruitlessly tried running the microphone up to the factory install location) and some general "car is a bit old" problems (a couple of attachment points for the right center console trim broke when taking them off and had to be mended, the largely-unused screw mounts on the bottom that the factory radio doesn't use disintegrated around the metal when I took the screws out and I needed to come up with an alternate way of attaching the new radio to them) and just plain old mistakes (I pulled the reverse camera wiring through the rubber sleeve the wrong way the first time and tore the cable, so had to buy a new cable and do it all over again).
This default launcher is pretty bad but since this is 99% of the time going to be an Android Auto front end I might just change it to Nova and be done with it. For the reverse camera I bought the same one I've bought on my last 3 installs, and used the licence plate mount to put it right below the trunk button. For power I used an add-a-fuse to the power top circuit and a 3 amp fuse so the camera is always powered when the car is but never when it isn't. I've found doing it so it comes on when you reverse leads to a delay in you actually getting a video.
The wire for the cable was just long enough to run through the wire sleeve from the trunk back to the interior; but if I had to do it again (a third time ) I would have the actual connection of the camera cable and the video/power breakout cable be in that sleeve to be safe. My initial thoughts are that the bass response and lower midrange are substantially better than the Jaguar DSP (which I ran in Dolby mode to try and get some quality out of it), with a much more textured sound. Mine had pre-done DSP settings for time delay that I might fiddle with, but even with the equalizer on standard it is a definite improvement. The screen resolution is a fair bit lower than I feel it should be (the PPI probably isn't that different from the factory setup), but in practice you only really notice it when Google Maps is running. My car has heated and cooled seats and heated steering wheel, and the unit controls all of them and (even though it requires multiple touches) does so more responsively than the original unit did even though the Jaguar setup defaulted on that page. I had heard about the issues with glare with this unit so I bought this screen protector, which is about 7mm wider than the visible portion of the screen. I cut the excess length off and removed the metal frame in front of the screen to install it. Seems to have done the job.
I didn't have any interest in the 4G functionality, so I didn't bother installing the antenna for it. There were also a couple more deviations from the install video posted in this thread that either came from the seller I got it from (NaviHua) or simply from more refinement of the system.
As was mentioned by BrianC72gt, when I pulled mine out I did not have this connection to transfer over on the original head unit. If it's somewhere up there, I don't know where it is. I see from this post that the other end appears to be in the trunk connected to whatever that is at the top of part of the MOST loop. I did a cursory check of the FM radio and I was pulling stations, so maybe on 5.0 cars it sends FM data over the MOST loop? I dunno. I haven't listened to FM radio since I left New York 4 years ago so it's not a pressing thing, but if anyone has an answer I would go in and fix it.
My unit was not wired this way. From the seller it had attenuators hard wired into the speaker outputs in addition to the RCA output. I suppose I still could have used either, but I opted to plug into the attenuators instead of the (what I'm assuming are) preamp outputs. This is something I may fiddle with to compare.
Not only do they no longer use this truly horrible looking fake woodgrain, but the connector that plugs into the passenger airbag light/hazard button actually is a real connector designed for that plug and not some breadboard connector you have to break pieces off of to get to fit.
I'm very happy with it so far, and would be even if there wasn't a subsequent increase in audio quality. The original Jaguar unit was, without a doubt, the worst touchscreen interface I had ever used in a car and actively had useability problems not even present in the one I had in the 2003 Cadillac Seville I used to have. For that reason alone I think it should be considered in spite of the expense over the various modifications you can make to the OEM system to make it support Android Auto. The plastiwood is even a reasonable fascimile of the wood my car already had. I still have some fiddling to do with the sound and the various buried menu options and there's some odd behavior I've noticed that I need to investigate, but overall I'm quite pleased indeed.
Should be noted that it's trivial for a cheeky manufacturer to change what the Android version number reports vs actually updating the Android version (for whatever benefit that would give for this application anyway). That's particularly true with these since in my experience with Android head units they all run a "base" Android head unit OS that is then customized for whatever the specific manufacturer is. Poking around in the back end for this reveals a bunch of things that indicate to me that the core system is identical to the old Android Auto system I just replaced in my Elise, right down to the weirdly translated terms that it uses for stuff like amplifier gain settings and an identical launcher. I'm somewhat doubtful that there's actually a difference in OS version vs any of the other "brands" that sell this Jaguar system.
Just re-read your post and my experience was very similar as in everything working plug and play, seat heating/cooling, having a seperqte speaker for the reverse sensors and not having to modify anything for the hazard switch so seems they have improved a fair bit.
I was sent the XK blue box which isn't working for me and they are sending me the XF box, can you confirm which one worked for you? My car is a 2011 with B&W.
They actually sent me both to begin with. The XK box worked for me, and mine is the same year as yours with the same speakers.
Strange that the XK box doesn't work for me then, I could get sound but only briefly and adding a 3rd bypass in the boot made no difference. They are sending me the XF box which they say will work connected to the same connection in the boot, we shall see.
Recieved the XF blue box, great service as it only took a week, swapped it in and everything is working fine, no need for the extra jumper in the boot.
So I guess it all depends which factory you get the unit from in terms of connections and whixh MOST decoder is required!
The audio is so much more customisable and the DSP also really improves the quality.
I have changed the pretty awful launcher to Agama and also installed Qobuz and TorquePro all working great 👍
So to summarise my sound issues, I was sent the XK MOST decoder (blue box) which did not work for me, I got sound for a few seconds then nothing. I tried what some.members have done by looping the MOST connectors to the CD Player in the boot but that didnt help.
I was sent the XF MOST decoder and a long cable to link to the boot if required but all I had to do was change the blue box and it works fine.
So 2011 XKR with B&W working 100% with XF MOST decoder, at least with my unit, maybe other units are different...
Where are the can bus settings?
) I would have the actual connection of the camera cable and the video/power breakout cable be in that sleeve to be safe. My initial thoughts are that the bass response and lower midrange are substantially better than the Jaguar DSP (which I ran in Dolby mode to try and get some quality out of it), with a much more textured sound. Mine had pre-done DSP settings for time delay that I might fiddle with, but even with the equalizer on standard it is a definite improvement. The screen resolution is a fair bit lower than I feel it should be (the PPI probably isn't that different from the factory setup), but in practice you only really notice it when Google Maps is running. My car has heated and cooled seats and heated steering wheel, and the unit controls all of them and (even though it requires multiple touches) does so more responsively than the original unit did even though the Jaguar setup defaulted on that page. I had heard about the issues with glare with this unit so I bought this screen protector, which is about 7mm wider than the visible portion of the screen. I cut the excess length off and removed the metal frame in front of the screen to install it. Seems to have done the job.
