Replacement Stereo 612

I spent quite a bit of time trying to find an alternative to the standard unit. Initially I had hoped to find a 1u unit that had nav and apple carplay that would fit into the existing mount and avoid having to cut it. However the only options I could find were cheap Chinese units available on Amazon and I didn’t think that was really in keeping. I really liked the look of the blaupunkt London 500, but as far as I can tell it still has not been launched after it has been showing on their website for several months.

So I ended up going for a 2u unit, I looked at options from kenwood, pioneer…and lots of others. In the end I settled for another blaupunkt unit - the Vienna. It has all the features I wanted and a rotary volume control, which I thought was more in keeping with the look of in 612 interior. It also fits flush to the dash, which is better than at least two units I tried which sat proud of the dash and I thought looked a bit ugly. It was a bit nerve wracking to cut the original mount to allow the 2u unit to fit, but I’m pleased with the finished result. There are probably more sophisticated units available now, so good luck in your search.

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Darren, thanks for your post. Do you have an OTO 612?

 

Heya, excuse the slightly dodgy editing, but the green line shows the material I had to remove from the original mount to get the 2u unit to fit. It was pretty easy to do with a dremel, but ofc it’s a one way trip..so I did buy another mount from eurospares just in case I ever want to go back to the original look.




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Sadly not an OTO, but I bought the number plate for one just in case i find a RHD car that’s in a colour that’s not black or grey…

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FYI, the gauges in the dash are different on post-2007 612s/OTOs.

 

I have often wondered about this. My car (2006 "pre-OTO") has the horizontal "bar" style gauges for oil pressure, oil temp, and water temp. It seems that later cars display the round "analog" style gauges. But...I'm sure that I have seen examples of early/pre-OTO cars that had the later style round gauges. Was there a software update at some point that changed the gauge format of those early cars, possibly done at the dealer level? Or was that a feature that was introduced on the "Interim" 612s? I haven't noticed this topic mentioned before here in the 612 forums.

 

My 2007 has the round gauges.
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I’m curious also.

 

My car, 2006 model year, chassis #147143 has the horizontal / bar gauges. And it also does not display the "F1-S" icon, even though I have the F1-S button on the shift pedestal. No combination of F1-S or Sport Mode selection will result in the display of that icon. And it is not mentioned in my owner's manual. I would really like to know the story about these gauges and the F1 mode icons.

 

According to me, the round gauges had been introduced with the interims, around Sept 2007.
A friend of mine has the round version in his 10/2007 612, and another one in his 12/2006 HGTC 612 has the horizontal bar version.
Another tip: Even if the 599 and 612 share the same dash, firmwares seem to be different: I discovered recently that the 599 shows, during the engine start, a picture of the engine in the screen, picture that is not available in the 612. I’m jealous.

I would like also to change my double-Din Bose (OTO), but I discovered that if I do that, I will loose some functions and setups that are only available via the 2-DIN Bose: volume of Park distance Control, date and hour setup, etc… In the OTO, because of the wheel change, there is no « menu/setup » button. Then we can’t launch the setup menu in the dash like the other 612s, and the only way of doing these setups is via the 2-Din Bose menus. Then, we cannot swap it, except if we consider these setups not necessary.