Has anyone installed a Grom Vline instead of repairing their DVD-based Nav unit? (1 Viewer)

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Title pretty much says it all. The Nav unit under the passenger seat in my wife's 03 100 has been dead for a while. I recently stumbled upon the Vline from Grom audio and it looks like it would modernize the whole vehicle and alleviate the need to replace the nav unit. I'm just wondering if it will work like I think it will. The guys at Grom weren't sure. Apparently the guy who did all the compatibility testing is no longer with the company.
 
It will work fine—the Grom unit replaces the feed for the disc changer. The hard buttons (climate, trip computer, nav, etc.) all stay factory. So she'll still have a dead nav, but gain the ability to just do everything through her phone (which is light years ahead anyway).

Easily my most used/loved mod.
 
It will work fine—the Grom unit replaces the feed for the disc changer. The hard buttons (climate, trip computer, nav, etc.) all stay factory. So she'll still have a dead nav, but gain the ability to just do everything through her phone (which is light years ahead anyway).

Easily my most used/loved mod.

@saucebox glad to hear it! Question, how do you handle phone calls? The guys at Grom just told me that the Vline doesn't have bluetooth calling? That seems dumb.
 
I use CarPlay through my iPhone. Calls are routed through the screen (lists who is calling, answer and decline buttons). The audio is routed through the car speakers, and the I use the mic included with the Grom package. When I hang up, it goes back to whatever I was doing before (nav, or nav + audio in my case).

By itself, I'm not sure I'd buy the unit. But using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay through your phone makes it great.
 
I've used the Grom VLine 2 with pretty good results. Carplay works very well IMO. Unfortunately you're still at the mercy of the factory screen and amp, all of which will likely fail at some point, therefore I'm in the process of going the nav delete route. Regarding phone calls, the Vline comes with a mic, which I haven't personally used, but in theory you should be able to use it to make handsfree calls by either bluetooth or Carplay/Android auto. For the later year 100's that have factory bluetooth calling, you should be able to use the factory feature (which is also pretty dismal). I used the supplied Grom mic with the older VL1 model on a 2001 LC and it was not good b/c they didn't have noise cancellation technology at the time, so the person on the other line heard a bunch of noise. Perhaps they've fixed that by now, though.
 
There is another thread out there with a lot of detail in it (for the original VLine). I had one installed but sent it back. At the time Carplay was a hidden feature that still had some bugs. The biggest deal breaker for me was that Google maps (VLine Android App) didn't work at all because the screen resolution was too low. I like the idea of VLine, but my personal impression was the resolution and touch interface in the 100 is too old.

I traded it in for their little USB box that runs your audio through an emulated dvd player. I'm happy just using my phone for navigation and everything else.

Here is my more detailed comment in the aforementioned thread:
 
@saucebox @NoogaCruiser where did you mount the Grom Vline unit?

Also, am I correct in understanding that Android Auto/Carplay don't require the Vline unit to have wifi, they just mirror for lack of a better term the phone?

Mine’s in the glove box. And it requires no WiFi if you’re using AA/CP, as you say. All that data is routed through your phone’s regular plan.

@westwardCruiser is right though—not a ton of resolution is to be had on our old screens. The maps work well through the phones, I think, in part because they’re designed to be simpler. I tried adding Gaia to the VLine, and it was total crap. Virtually impossible to read...anything.
 
Also mounted in glovebox.

I'd agree that the OEM screen resolution is a bit of a disappointment, but I've also tried one of the higher resolution Joying head units in my son's 2000 TLC. While the Joying screen is beautiful by comparison, when standing still, hitting the tiny little buttons on the Joying screen, while moving, is an exercise in frustration, compared to the big low resolution buttons on the VLine.
 

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