This may be a bit of bizarre question but I'm trying to work out what's on top of my car?! I bought an ex-demonstrator GTI and it has what I would call a 'shark fin' style aerial on the top. I always thought that these were specifically for cars with in-built sat-nav systems, which mine doesn't have. Therefore I was wondering if it's just a neat and tidy radio aerial or if its likely a GPS aerial with all the appropriate wiring, (but just not connected to a sat nav system)? If anyone knows anything about these things and could provide me with a clue, that would be great!
it will be for gps i reckon , probably easier and cheaper for them to supply one type of aerial rather than two , or as you say , you do not have satnav so it may just be an empty box or basic radio aerial
Thank you!! That might well be it, as it does have mobile telephone preparation installed. (Not that I can use it, but that's another story!) I hadn't realised it would use that aerial, as I said, I'd only associated the shark-fins with GPS previously. Shame though, as I quite fancied chaging my head-unit to a sat nav one, oh well
If you PM me your VIN # I can check what your vehicle was ordered with! Even if it doesn't have GPS prep you can still retrofit it, cheapest way is to use a third party GPS receiver and hide it behind the unit. You could do a complete retrofit but that means taking the a post and roof trim out!
The shark fin is for GPS, your radio aerial is part of the rear screen, earlier mk5s had the radio aerial built into the rear screen but this was later dropped and VW reverted to the roof mounted bee sting.
Actually I've just got the VIN # and checked and the aerial is for Phone-Prep only but cross checking part numbers with the Satnav prep there's only one part different to add for satnav prep. Part number: 3C0 035 507 A It's a combination part with the same part number as the phone-prep aerial the OP has. Nice thing is it has the 'highline' on board computer, so if the retrofit navi was installed it would have the directions on the instrument cluster also. Handy so you don't keep on having to glance across! Though it would be a pain to take he headliner out as the clips are one use only so would need some of those also.