Technical 2016 Fiat 500X Pop - Uconnect Radio upgrade help

[kingfreddiemercury]

My wife & I have recently bought a 2016 Fiat 500X Pop as our general town / school run around, happy with it so far and our kids love it. Our only bug bare is with the 'Uconnect' radio system, the signal is terrible (even after replacing the external aerial) and it's just a very basic head unit with no bluetooth functionality - see the top image. Ours is the basic 3" system I believe.

I'd like to replace it with the 5" system (Fiat part no. 07356616980) on the bottom image - currently for sale on eBay for £130 ono. Is it possible to just do a straight swap? I have appropriate dash & trim removal tools. I know I won't have the steering wheel control functionality, but this wouldn't bother us. It would just be nice to have Bluetooth connectivity for music and a DAB radio. It looks like this one has NAV too, so that would be handy.

Is it a case of take the old one out > remove wiring from the back > place wiring in the back of the 5" unit > Re-fit > type in radio code.. ? Or is there more to it?

 

[cainy1989]

you could do it, but its not just plug and play, the antenna connection will be different with not having GPS/DAB. you might be better off going with a third party android unit with apple CarPlay and android auto

 

[kingfreddiemercury]

you could do it, but its not just plug and play, the antenna connection will be different with not having GPS/DAB. you might be better off going with a third party android unit with apple CarPlay and android auto

Ah ok, so the actual antenna fitting at the back of my current unit and the newer 5" unit would be different? That's good to know - thanks. Would this same issue not apply to a third party version too, though?

 

[cainy1989]

Usually with the kits for 3rd party android units you'd have to buy an additional GPS/DAB antennas for those features to work. Its possible your car might have the combined DAB antenna fitted and not in use but the only way to tell is to take the radio out and have a nose and see what connections you have and then the connections on the back of the unit you're looking to replace it with.

 

[s130]

Below are the difference between the 3" and 5" systems.

With the 5" system then many of the vehicle settings are on the uConnect Unit. I assume that some/all of these are on the vehicle dashboard settings menu when a 3" uConnect system is fitted.

Putting the 5" in place of the 3" will at least require the Body Computer Module (BCM) to have a Proxy Alignment done (flashing mileage indicator). I've no experience of doing a 3" to 5" uConnect swop and neither do I recally seeing elsewhere anybody who has done this. Most seem to upgrade to an alternative aftermarket unit with the correct addition control module.

The main unit multiway connector appears to be the same.

 

[bfukumoto]

I upgraded from 5" to 6.5" Uconnect on my daughter's 2017 500X Trekking Urbana. It was 99% plug-n-play with only a proxy alignment at dealer required to stop the flashing odometer. I suspect that so long as the harness connector fits, you will be fine as it is very unlikely that Fiat has separate wiring harnesses for various Uconnect head units. Obviously, if you don't have back-up camera or GPS antenna hardware options, you won't be able to have those features on the 5" or 6.5" head units. Attached are photos of the 5" head unit after removal.

 

[2FiatsRon]

I would not of thought that it is worth going to all the expense and technical problems to replace one UConnect unit with another as UConnect is no longer supported by Fiat. The less hassle route is to use a separate TomTom or Garmin unit.

 

[Punlo]

I purchased a new radio to upgrade my radio. The connections are the same and there was power to it. However, it keeps saying “code error” and won’t let me enter the code. Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[bfukumoto]

I purchased a new radio to upgrade my radio. The connections are the same and there was power to it. However, it keeps saying “code error” and won’t let me enter the code. Any suggestions? Thanks

You can take radio out and provide serial number to dealer who can then generate a new code. They will likely charge you. Or you can pay to have someone provide you the code based on the serial number. https://www.ebay.com/itm/395069503679

 

[Punlo]

You can take radio out and provide serial number to dealer who can then generate a new code. They will likely charge you. Or you can pay to have someone provide you the code based on the serial number. https://www.ebay.com/itm/395069503679

Thanks for your reply. I took it to an electronic guy who was able to work it outside the car so it must just be my car not recognising it. Although the mileage flashes which would say it realises something new is there. I will try play around a bit more with it.

 

[s130]

With uConnect you do not have to normally enter any code. At the factory the radio code and vehicle body computer syncronise their codes. When the radio/car is turned on the uConnect requests a code from the body computer and the body computer sens the code to the uConnect system.

In your case the current uConnect head code does not match the stored body computer code hence the code error. Outside of the car no code is sent hence it works.

You need to do a Proxi Aligment so the body computer can register the uConnect system. That will hopefully reset the codes which you may have to initially manually enter on the head unit.