This weekend I went out and pulled my indash CD receiver to check for the
infamous K-wire problem on 98's.  It turns out that my car (built 10/97)
has the same radio connections as documented in the Bentley, section 91-4.
This is different than the connections posted by Uwe for "late" 98s.  Mine
has 3 connectors, black,brown & pink, with similar pin counts.  The picture
Uwe posted has the same black & brown, and then a higher density connector
with many more pins.

Anyway, I did have the infamous Metra harness with pins 3 & 5 looped
together,
with a blue wire attached to pin 3 ( on the black connector).  The Bentley
showed that pin 3 was open, however there was a connection on my factory
harness.  It was a black wire which actually came from the speaker harness
and crossed over to the black connector, pin 3.

I now believe that pin 3 on *my* car is the turn-on lead for the Bose
amplifier.  When I disconnected it from +12V, I got no sound.  The
key to this discovery was a decal on the factory Bose head unit, which
showed pin 3 to have a little speaker symbol and a "+" sign.

I was kind of aggrivated after all this, so I just slapped the factory
head unit back in.  Back to the sub-par, no-CD, muddy tone I once knew.
I do have to say that I like the fit/finish of the factory unit much
better than the one I had in there. I may go with Zeek's suggestion of
a Blaupunkt unit, next time I get a few spare $$.

BTW, I re-measured voltage at the data-link connector after I replaced the
factory headunit.  Again, no +12V on the K-wire with ignition off, and +12V
on the K-wire with ignition on.  Somebody on the list this weekend suggested
that there should be +5V on the K-wire, but I get +12V.  As far as I know,
no scanning of my car has taken place.  Maybe one of you adventurous types
could go measure your K-wire voltage and report back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Cleland					clelandstlnet
98 Jetta GLX
Black/Biber

[...]

"Matt Cleland" <clelandstlnet> wrote:

...major snippage...

>BTW, I re-measured voltage at the data-link connector after I replaced the
>factory headunit.  Again, no +12V on the K-wire with ignition off, and +12V
>on the K-wire with ignition on.  Somebody on the list this weekend suggested
>that there should be +5V on the K-wire, but I get +12V.

Hi Matt. That was me. When I removed my stock stereo, I checked the voltage
of the K-wire in the factory radio harness. Using a $20 Radio Shack
multimeter, I got 5 volts with the key turned on, and no reading (0 volts)
with the key off.

Has anyone else measured the voltage of the K-wire?

-Jason
'98 Silver Arrow
(built 1/98)
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Hi Jason..

Since I didn't have the K-wire in my stereo harness, I was measuring it at
the
1551 interface port near the ashtray.  It was definitely +12V, so maybe
there
are different voltage "versions" of the K-wire signal, depending upon what
it's connecting to.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Cleland					clelandstlnet
98 Jetta GLX
Black/Biber

[...]

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