First porsche - two quick questions.

[Stinson]

Hi there, long time lurker, first time poster, so be gentle.

This past weekend, I've proudly become the owner of my first Porsche, a 2004 997.1 carrera S coupe.

I bought it from a very good friend who is a dealer, and I'm very pleased with it indeed.

There are two questions that you lovely helpful people could help me with please.

First is does anyone have a 996/997 roof system that they no longer need and would be happy to sell to me?

One of the reasons for getting a hard top was so that I can carry my bike on the roof.

Second is does anyone have any experience of the Dension Gateway system for ipod/iphone connectivity?

My mate who sold me the car reckons that I should keep the ICE standard and just fit the Dension to spoof the PCM into thinking that the ipod is the CD multichanger.

However in the two car audio specialists that I've been to, they've recommended replacing the head unit for something with DAB, bluetooth and sat nav.

The Dension comes in at £450. New head unit £1150-1750 fitted.

I'm leaning very much towards the Dension, was just wondering if anyone's had it fitted, and how well it worked? The online reviews are somewhat mixed. Thanks in advance.

[Rawhide]

Hi, I too have a 997 C2S and had Dension fitted. I really like the suboptimal headunit and like the fact it's all factory integrated. No doubt the 'best' solution will be a new head unit. However for me Dension is 'good enough'. I researched Dension and MoBridge and neither is perfect. I therefore chose the cheapest and bought one on ebay for £200.

Good Points :-
Sound is fantastic
Can stream spotify and all other apps from my iphone direct to the head unit
Call quality is very good - a lot better than the Porsche phone system.

Bad Points :-
Sometimes the system gets confused if I connect the Iphone to the USB input. It can't work out whether to use bluetooth or the cable. I get around this by using Bluetooth only and charge from another USB source.
Ever start up you have to cancel the message saying 'phone not available' After that all is fine.
Interface is fiddly to work out - however I just use the Iphone and then only really advance songs etc.
Phone book doesn't sync correctly. I get around this by saving numbers to the PCM instead. I don't make many calls anyhow.

My car has Bose, CD changer and phone prep. Sometimes if you have less devices you may not have some of the problems listed above. The car can get confused as the CD changer and Phone are both replaced by one device. Thats why you get the error which you just need to ignore.

[Stinson]

Thank you.

[jonno_]

Same position as you on the audio front.
Went with Mobridge as there seemed a lot of negative comments on the Dension Bluetooth - most fit the ipod version and then parrot BT, but that's not exactly stealth / OEM (if a concern)
Plus, to a lesser degree, some have reported sound quality issues
So far, so good - no regrets does a good job, but it's not cheap.