AVIC D3 problem draining battery

[Kevfra]

Installed a D3 the other day, tested everything after intitial wiring - worked fine. Left town three days and came back to a dead battery (brand new battery too). I'm wondering...the stock Becker would always play just using the power button, which means there was juice available all the time and not connected to the ignition switch. Might be the AVIC, given a chance, would pull down the battery if juice is always available? I know several of you have installed one, so did you have to recircuit so the power is hot with key on only?

[Kevfra]

I don't think the issue is as I described. What's going on is the car won't start. Won't crank even a little, not even a click. But I get a nice panle of lights and things seem otherwise normal. Too much of a coincidence to suspect my ignition switch suddenly failed right when I changed the radio. Is there an immobilizer that kicks in if the Becker is removed?

[Chills]

I have the AVIC installed and haven't had this problem.

Did you wire the "always on" and "switched on" positive wires properly?

[bluesbishop]

Kevfra,

Any updates??? I'm looking to install the Avic soon and wanted to see if that was the problem or something else..

[Kevfra]

Yes things are fine, and it had nothing to do with the AVIC. There was no battery drain. What happened was the installation triggured the security immobilizer. I had to reset it, which was a pain, but that's all. Everything is fine with the AVIC.

Now that being said, unless it is a matter of dollars, I'd buy the new generation and not the D3. The screen is much improved, and the GPS data disc doesn't have to live in the CD drive.

If dollars are primary then I'd say I'm very happy with the AVIC. Good sound, lots of functions (half of them silly and useless though), not very easy to use. But quite an upgrade to the car and looks great. I love the iPod features that allow you to bury your iPod for life and use the main screen for all controls.

[6speed]

Im thinking of getting an avic becouse you can custumize the background with the porsche logo! And getting true's kit! have you done that?

[Kevfra]

I did use true's kit and it does look just as he shows in the write-up. It's a bit of a chore, but if you have basic skills and the right tools it's just an issue of patience. However I didn't use the Porsche logo on my screen, I used some fun personal pictures. A different picture for the nav screen, and the music screen, and others. It is quite easy to load the pics into perminant memory. There is a lot of custom programming you can do too, I have two homes and when I arrive at my suburban house a dog barks on the nav system, when arriving at my country house the birds chirp. Things like that - it's fun.

To realy take advantage of the new headend though you really should upgrade your speakers. I'm driving twelve speakers now and it sounds fabulous.

[chitowndad]

I haven't messed with the nav yet on my Avic D3, but I did upgrade the stock subs on the door with JL Audio 6.5 inch and that made a huge difference. I left the stock dash speakers in and also added a Pyramid amp that is designed to handle 2 subs and 2 dash speakers perfectly. I got the amp on eBay for like $65! I did have to install a ground loop eliminator on the amp and that was like $15 from radio shack.

12 speakers is a lot! My 4 sound great, especially with the upgraded amp.

I love my Avic D3. especially since it was only $699 at BB and I've seen it for $540 on the internet when Googling.

Good luck,
-Steve

[6speed]

Well I'm about to get the avic but now I cant find true's kit anywhere!!!! I saw a carbon fiber and a kit like true's but not true's