Cant wait to see how this turns out.

 

I did it! Official summary to follow below.

 

GROM Audio Nissan Infiniti Bluetooth Adapter GROM-BT3-NIS02 - Documentation of Install

Car: 2005 G35x (no NAV, wood trim, Bose audio)
Time: It took me about an hour and half to get it working, then less than a half hour to put it back together. Not bad for a couple of hours.



Unit is not very large. It came with car-specific adapter (right of box) and Bluetooth microphone (above box).


Initial feedback on use of unit:
- Steering wheel controls work with phone calls and Bluetooth Streaming.
- SEEK track functionality on steering wheel is backwards. When I am streaming music, I push the SEEK bar DOWN to go to the next song. A little counter-intuitive but I'll get over it.
- There is no AVCRP streaming for Bluetooth music (ie. the head unit will not display song information).
- GROM box will automatically connect to your phone upon turning the car on.
- Sound quality (digital) is comparable to that of MP3 CD. Sound quality far exceeds that of an iSimple AUX input (analog) - this is the previous box I had in my car.

Install Procedure
1. Remove entire AC unit/stereo. Watch Wrathernaut's YouTube for detailed instruction. I can't recommend this video enough. It's super well done. One comment - at 2:35 in the video when you pull up the "rear trim", you are pulling up the entire armrest piece.


To properly remove this piece, you must lift up the armrest and pry open the vent. Inside, you will find 6 screws, 3 on each side. 2 on each side connect the armrest to the "rear trim" piece. The other one on each side connects the rear trim to the car. You must remove this screw (it is the one on each side that is furthest to the front of the car).

Wrathernaut's Video:

This is what my stereo looked like right before I pulled it off.


This is what my stereo looked like right after I pulled it off.


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At this point, I used the following video (thanks to RedBeauty84XZ) to complete my install. Wrathernaut's video is better for removing trim, but this guy takes you through the finish line. Beginning at 3:30 in the video, you can see exactly which socket to use and how to tap into your constant 12V power. Keep in mind his GROM box model is SLIGHTLY different than mine but it looks like his car is a 2007 G Coupe w/o NAV.

I'll continue to provide pics of my own install, though.

2. Plug the car-specific attachment to the GROM box. It only fits one way.


The other end of the car-specific attachment cable has two plugs. One is to plug into the radio, the other is for a NAV system. Since I don't have a NAV, I used just one. Luckily, the instructions provided by GROM are terrific and you'll be able to clearly tell which one to use.

3.Pretend you are holding your stereo right side up, facing away from you. You should see a cluster of 4 plugs at the bottom of the radio. You will remove the bottom right plug and plug in one of your two plugs from the car-specific adapter - don't worry, only one fits. In this pic, I am holding both the stereo (right side up, facing away from me) and the car specific adapter. There is a black cord in my hand and it splits into two heads. One of the heads is plugged into the bottom right socket of the cluster, the other is floating to the right of the picture. This is also documented in the video above.



4. Turn of the power to your car. You will now splice the 12V power to the radio.

5. Next, you should follow the GROM instructions for using the blue cylindrical piece to splice your power. Please double check the instructions for which cord it is .. on mine, it was the yellow cord in the cluster in the bottom right. The video also shows you how to properly splice the powerusing the blue cylinder provided by GROM.


This is what it looks like after you are done.


Here is what the stereo looks like with the splice completed and the correct socket plugged in.


6. At this point you should plug your battery back in, turn your car on and check to make sure the entire system works before putting it back in.

7. If it works, congratulations! You get to put it back together. I hid my box in the bottom left cavity. Here is the first stage:


Here is the second stage:


In its final resting place (after managing to put the stereo back in):


Then you basically put it all back together in reverse order.

With regard to the microphone, here is where I have it mounted. Yes, I know I'm lazy.


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All in all, it took about 2 hours. Not super complicated. The Wrathernaut video is terrific and the second video is pretty good too. Give yourself plenty of time and don't be flustered - the GROM instructions may seem intimidating but are actually really helpful and well though-out. Also, it surprised me how easily things detached from the car. If you feel like you are using too much force to remove a trim part, you probably ARE. There probably is a screw or another trim piece that needs to be removed. You should not be breaking any clips or snapping any pieces.

Feel free to PM with questions. Thanks to everyone on G35Driver, especially Wrathernaut, for your help!

 

Thanks for the great write-up, I'll be linking to it from the main AUX input sticky.

Also, just to confirm did you have factory bluetooth?

 

I did not, no. If I did, I wouldn't have changed it hahaha. The previous owner put in an iSimple aux/iPod box. I actually never removed it. It is located somewhere behind the top glove box (the one that is rectangular and looks like it can fit a book). I basically cut away the aux/iPod cords and remove them to reduce clutter but I didn't actually get back there to remove the iSimple box.

 

Thanks a lot "djtalon"! I just ordered my GROM unit today and will definitely refer back to this when I go to install in. I ordered this version:
http://www.gromaudio.com/store/usb_a...b2p-nis02.html

Great post "djtalon".

 

Installed my Grom box with Bluetooth last night. Took a bit longer than I anticipated and I accidentally nicked a small piece off my dash with the metal tab that goes below the clock . Haven't hid my wires or mounted my mic yet either. DJTalon does your Grom take a moment to work correctly once you start the car? Also my XM1 and XM2 channels seem to keep switching around where sometimes BT comes out of xm1 and other times xm2. The radio also hesitates for a second when switching to xm1 or xm2.

 

about the dash. I have a couple scratches there too. It took probably 5-10 minutes of tinkering around with Bluetooth before I linked up the first time around. My usual routine is - sit down, start the car, fasten seat belt, put phone in mount and connect power to phone. By the time I'm done with this, the phone is already linked to BT. It's not any more laggy than it is in my previous car (that car had an aftermarket stereo with BT).

Also - I'm pretty set on XM1. I haven't seen it link to XM2. Also, there is no additional hesitation switching XM1 to XM2, ie. it takes the same amt of time going from XM1 to XM2 to AM to FM1 to FM2 back to XM1.

Hope this helps. I'm actually going through a coolant bubble issue myself right now. I gotta post about it later

 

This is why in my re-install portion I say to lay down masking tape in that area when you're putting that bit back in.

 

djtalon, thanks for the thorough write-up!

I noticed in the item description, it said that a "CAT/SAT should be on stereo." My stock radio looks a but different than yours, my "CAT" button is shared with the RPT function. My radio looks just like the one below:



Do you know if the GROM-BT3-NIS02 will be compatible with my radio?