Fitting an Android head unit into a Vauxhall Corsa D (2011)

This came about when I tried to fit an aftermarket stereo into my Wife's Vauxhall Corsa (An Xtrons, see the blog post here http://www.thebmwz3.co.uk/2018/02/xtrons-3-single-din-car-radio.html ).

However after just a short amount of use it turned out to be a really poorly made unit, and so I was looking for an alternative to fit that wouldn't cost much. Luckily a friend at work was selling his old android double-din head unit so I bought that off him.

It's a typical cloned android head unit, but had the advantage of having various physical buttons, and I knew it to work well from my friend at work, so I bought it, not really thinking it through. Got it home and take a look at the size:

Here you can see the xtrons unit still in, with it's plastic surround and the new unit. You'll notice the Vauxhall panel is tapered at either side, so it isn't a straight rectangular fit, so this may prove difficult!

First steps were to remove the old xtrons unit, this just clips in so just pull it out and the bracket came with it. Disconnected all the power and audio connections from it so we've got it free (Apart from the power cables which were wired in, due to the Vauxhall radio connector not having an ignition power wire, more on that later).

So now I got the chance to see what the fit might start to look like:

So it did start to fit in the hole, but this was as far as it went at first. On each side of the head unit there were the mounting brackets with clips, luckily these were just screwed into place, so removing those and the unit slid all the way back:

Not exactly a perfect fit though, and so make it fit flush would mean taking the Dremel to the dashboard. I had considered this, since it's something I've done in my Chrysler, however in this case that plastic bezel around it is actually almost the entire lower section of dashboard, so to replace would mean replacing almost the whole plastic dashboard trim, not something I wanted to pay out for, nor do should I want to return it to factory for when it gets sold.

Therefore I thought we'd just live with it not being flush, and work to mounting it as securely as possible. In this case the only solution would be either from the top or bottom of the radio. Luckily there were a few screw holes in the top of the unit, so these would act as our securing points.

So to get to the top of the radio, above the radio is the air vent, door lock and passenger air-bag cancel button unit (in silver on this edition), so this needed to come off.

***WARNING : Before you do this DISCONNECT the battery. I didn't and when you disconnect the airbag disable button it triggers the airbag warning system which needs an SRS code reader/reset to remove!***

** EXTRA NOTE - After almost 2 months the airbag light has gone out of it's own accord, so it does reset, it just takes a VERY long time **

To remove this panel the first thing you do is remove the small speaker grill from the top (This has the lump that looks like an alarm sensor), that pops out using a thin screwdriver. Once out you'll see a single hex screw. Once that's undone you gently prise and pop the clock display piece out. You'll see from the photo above the clock display is separate to the silver vent housing, so that clips out (It folds upwards towards the windscreen). The clock has a clip connector behind it, so does the speaker. The speaker is a pop/plug connector that just pulls out. The clock connector has a mini lever on it you press and turn to disconnect.

Once that's out you can then remove the further 3 hex screws which hold the air vent unit in, this again is clipped in at either side of the vents and then with two clips downwards towards the radio position. This whole unit then comes out, again the connector at the back for the airbag, etc, is a mini lever that once you release the clip on it, turning the lever will disconnect it and let you remove it. REMEMBER: DISCONNECT BATTERY FIRST!
You can see the connector in the middle of this photo:

That's the unit removed, so now we have the plastic surround that the radio sits against (It's the piece with the connector sitting on it, so that's the top of our radio mount). In this case I thought the easiest was to drill two small holes into this, and then use a screw through this plastic piece and into the radio to hold it in place.

Once the screws were in and tested I turned to the wiring. Luckily the connector Vauxhall uses is almost identical to the one used by Ford, so this was just a clip in plug.

The above is similar to what I used, you need the antenna power/can unit for the Vauxhall Corsa. Clipping the main block into the factory car connector was easy, however as I found before, there is NO ignition switched power on this factory connector (It uses the CANBUS car network to control it), therefore the alternative wire I'd put in from elsewhere was needed again. This was a separate wire I put in that provided power from the ignition, and so would control the radio on/off, etc. So I cut the wires that went to the connector and wired these into my ignition. Wired in the power to the antenna amplifier block (the silver can), and added the rear reversing camera connections to it (Already fitted a while ago). Turned the ignition on and it all powered up perfectly! Audio was good, and actually really loud for the car, using only 4/5 volume setting and it was perfect.

To fit it back in I fastened the two screws in place that holds the radio in, then refitted the silver fascia and then the top clock/plastic. Something else I found, the silver fascia was a difficult fit back in, due to the radio being slightly larger, so potentially this might not fit properly in future, will keep an eye on it and see if it pops back out!
There is also the heater/blower vents at the back which are soft plastic, make sure you check at the back and line them up as they can easily be squashed when you push the fascia back in if it's not fully lined up.

However, not a bad piece of work and the results are pretty good, even though it sticks out a bit!