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Removing Infotainment To Apply Hacks

15K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Bikedork 
#1 ·
Hi All!

I'm wanting to do the hacks with AIO. I'm on .502. So my only option is to access via serial. I can find plenty of Mazda 3 walk through of this. But I only seen one post on here of how to access the back of the Cx3 unit to tap into Serial. And that was really just a picture of the plastic piece off. Not really a 'How To'. Any one done this? How does it work for you? Have any issues? Break anything? Just bought my cx3, and I want to change the background on the screen and get Android Auto running.

Thanks!
 
#2 ·
I have the serial to USB card sitting on my desk ready to do this as well.

Step by step removal pictures would be great.

Advice I got previously was lift the front panel from the top and it will pop out.

Bolts become visible.

Rear panel may need to be helped out from behind the glove box.
 
#4 ·
So I was able to do this pretty easily. Way easier for us in the cx3 than the rest of the line up. Hardest part is making sure the wires are making contact with the pins. Both the little covers popped right off with a little plastic pry tool. I went through the trouble of using my plastic pry tool.....then scratched a little bit of the dash with the actual unit. Wish I would have seen the warning to put a towel down before hand.... Oh well. I will find a way to repair it. The only other part the confused me was the command prompt text just flying by.. I'd hit enter, start to type and before I'd finish, it be gone lost interest the text of the commands it was running. Only way it worked was copying what I needed in my clip board. Then hitting enter then right click then enter again really fast before it writes more commands. Otherwise it would take what I was trying to type. That took me a few trys to get right. After that it's was easy easy easy. Let me know if you want any tips!
 
#3 ·
When you get the panels out of the way it's just two bolts an two plastic tabs.
After removing the bolts just lift the front of the unit up to release the tabs and then jus pull it out.
MZD-unit has sharp edges. Put something on the dash to protect it from scratching, masking tape or a rag.
 
#6 ·
So I removed the front trim easily and worked the back one off. I removed the two M10 bolts in front of the screen. The screen/head unit are a little wobbly, but I don't see where these two plastic tabs are. The unit is kind of loose. I don't want to put significant force on prying it upward in the front. Do I need to unscrew the 4 philips head screws that were under the rear trim?
 
#11 ·
CarPlay Install Hacks

I found this thread in my quest to install CarPlay on my 2016 CX-3. Thank you, because the removal does not appear anywhere else. I echo the sentiment about taping the dash particularly in front of the screen because the bottom of the unit is sharp and WILL scuff your dash if the bottom comes in contact. That first tab on the top plate is the toughest to free, and I finally did it with the help of an old plastic bicycle tire iron. Once you push up an edge, you can work from above and get the thing off. The video of the Japanese person on this thread was a lot calmer than I was.

I wanted to add information about removing the USB Hub on the CX-3 in case others were struggling with the same thing. I used the drill hack found in YouTube by AJ Hawk, which allowed me to skip the pain of removing the center cluster between the driver and passenger seats. I used a Dremel with a flexible extension to drill four holes into the old USB hub. The point of this is to take out the four tabs so you can remove the hub. This took a little faith and a steady hand, but I got the job done.

For the record, the location of the four tabs are from 6mm to 19mm as measured from the side edges of the front plate. The tabs themselves are attached 20mm behind the surface of the plate, and you should not drill much deeper than that. Really the only item that you will run into is a capacitor on the right upper side (which I did, but backed off when I saw sparks). There is a lot of forgiving space in this, and my attempt reminded me of the hatchet job I did on that poor fetal pig from my high school biology days. To be on the safe side, disconnect the battery's negative terminal before you start.

After vacuuming, test the CarPlay before your push the new USB Hub into place, otherwise you will need to remove all of the center console if you need to remove the new USB hub again. Good luck!
 
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