Just finished my corksport install, decided I’d write up a little bit on some things that cause major grief during my install. Hopefully this will help someone who is having trouble.

Setup:

Corksport Kit
Avic D3
Pac SWI PS Steering Wheel Control
Bose Adaptor
Pioneer Bluetooth
Pioneer IPOD Cable

Tips:

-before you decide to go ahead with the purchase, just be wary that if something goes wrong, i.e corksport ships you a broken part, things are going to be a pain in the ***. Suffice it to say that corksport is the worst company I’ve ever dealth with in my entire life. There customer service is absolutely dreadful.

-Do not purchase the corksport steering wheel controls, go with the PAC SWI (in my case, the PS version. Its very simple to use, cheaper and works much much much better then what corksport offers)

-Purchase an antenna extension cord. You’ll need it.

-follow the DIY for removing all the trim pieces. I’ve heard a ton of people making a big deal about removing the stereo. I found this part the easier of the whole installation. The trick when removing the ac/climate control is to have a little screw driver. There is a little tab on the bottom of each of the AC connectors (it’s a white square). If you push on this tab with the screwdriver and pull back on the AC connectors, they will come out with no trouble at all.

-When wiring the unit, remember that the PAC SWI uses the black (ground), red (power) and white cords only. Cut the rest of the cords off as there isn’t a lot of room to work with and you don’t need any other ones. The white cord from the PAC SWI will attach to the white cork on the corksport harness. You won't find this referenced in the corksport kit, (thanks to firebirdude who figured that out.)

-If you have the bose adapter and are using the an AVIC D3, you MUST connect one of the bullet connectors from the ACC on the corksport harness to the Antenna Power (blue/white) on the corksport harness, fail to do this and you’ll get no sound. There are some instructions that touch on this with the corksport kit, but I couldn’t understand what they were on about.

-A lot of people on this forum choose to put their GPS receivers on the dash, some on the pillars, some even (personally I think this is the stupidest thing possible) put their GPS receivers outside their car. Do yourself a favor (assuming you do not have factory navigation), pop the center dash piece off (the one directly above the stereo with the center speaker. It’s easy to remove, just unscrew the air vents, pull them forward. Then unscrew a couple of more screw and pull the center piece up and it’ll pop right off. Place you GPS in this area, YES even covered by that big chunk of plastic you’ll get full reception (I pickup 100% of the satellites placing my GPS here). Works the same in my saab.

Hope this helps someone!

 

good write up, but I would like to comment on the customer service...

There have been a couple of people on this forum that have recieved the wrong AC control box (the automatic instead of the manual) and all they had to do was call corksport and got the right part in a few days.. never a horror story..

I may be wrong, but from what I've heard they have great customer service...

 

I have my gps on the roof right above the front windshield... just need to get it painted to match body color.

 

I have my GPS - Sirius - and XM on my trunk.. although i do kind of like the under the dash idea..

It's like this - but with another big round one for XM

 

I've noticed that most of the time, its the pro installers that will push an exterior install for the GPS antenna on people. When I went for a quote for having everything installed professionally from an extremely reputable installer in Calgary, they told me that in all there years, they'd noticed that putting the GPS receiver anywhere inside the vehicle will compromise reception. As a result they wanted to charge me a little bit extra $$$ to have an exterior install for the antenna.

I ended up not going with a pro installer and did an install on my Saab 9-2x and Rx-8 and as I mentioned, I get full reception under the center dash trim on both installs, best of all, everything is completely stealth

 

ouch, my gps antenna is mounted in place of the factory center channel, no need to put anything on the outside as it picks up just fine there and looks oem as well, I've had zero problems with nav reception (using a SoundStream vir7100n deck) with it located there, just hoping we won't have to re-do it for my new radio.