I'm interested as well. I hate running a lightning cable through the shifter area to the console where I put my phone. My wife's 2016 Mazda6 has the USB port in the armrest, and I added the Carplay retrofit kit to it a couple of months ago. This required removing all of the trim on the dash and center console, and it took about 15 minutes and required no tools. I assume the 3 is the same. The question is whether the center console piece from the Mazda6 would also fit the Mazda3. I would think that Mazda would make them the same dimensions and part numbers to keep production costs low, but I'm not sure. The other question is whether there is a blanking plate that can be used to fill in the hole under the HVAC controls where you would take out the old USB plate.
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Do other countries have it ?
Saw this on Ebay but was interested in the pic?
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Saw this on Ebay but was interested in the pic?
Well it took over 6 weeks to receive the part I ordered from Aliexpress, then another month for me to get around to doing this. The part I bought from Aliexpress was called "Liislee 12 Pins RCA Adapter Connector Wire Cable for Mazda 3 ...".
This cable has the correct plugs that match the USB box for our cars. However, the length is really short so you'll need to splice in a bunch of wires to make the extension. There are 12 leads, but I didn't know which ones were used in the car without taking apart the console again, so I just extended all 12. I used 22AWG wire that I had laying around, and I added about 60" of wire. This ended up being way too long, but that's fine - even the extensions you get from Mazda are too long, and you just bundle them up with a zip tie and stuff them in an empty spot in the console. No harm done. I zip tied the wires in a bundle under the cupholder in an empty spot, and zip-tied the loose wire to the shifter assembly up front to make sure it doesn't end up moving around and interfering with the shifter mechanism (maybe less of a concern with an automatic).
I've added a few photos here. Any questions, let me know.
This cable has the correct plugs that match the USB box for our cars. However, the length is really short so you'll need to splice in a bunch of wires to make the extension. There are 12 leads, but I didn't know which ones were used in the car without taking apart the console again, so I just extended all 12. I used 22AWG wire that I had laying around, and I added about 60" of wire. This ended up being way too long, but that's fine - even the extensions you get from Mazda are too long, and you just bundle them up with a zip tie and stuff them in an empty spot in the console. No harm done. I zip tied the wires in a bundle under the cupholder in an empty spot, and zip-tied the loose wire to the shifter assembly up front to make sure it doesn't end up moving around and interfering with the shifter mechanism (maybe less of a concern with an automatic).
I've added a few photos here. Any questions, let me know.
Attachments
It looks like the plug uses 8 of the 12 pins on the connector. I was able to route it back to the armrest without an issue and swap the blank template into the front console. The biggest pain is that you will need to completely disassemble the center console as well as a lot of the dash in order to get to the aux/usb box in the front. So if you are thinking of doing the android auto/carplay update yourself and want to relocate that box to the armrest, I would highly recommend doing it all in one shot.
Like I mentioned above, I added 50" of 20 awg wire to the connector that needs to be ordered (it does not come with the Carplay/AA upgrade kit). Looking at the amount of slack I had leftover, I would not go with any less than 40" of added wire.
Additionally, if you need any foam tape to keep your extra wires from rattling, I used this wide foam tape from Home Depot.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Bui...x-30-ft-Camper-Seal-Foam-Tape-02352/202066511
Like I mentioned above, I added 50" of 20 awg wire to the connector that needs to be ordered (it does not come with the Carplay/AA upgrade kit). Looking at the amount of slack I had leftover, I would not go with any less than 40" of added wire.
Additionally, if you need any foam tape to keep your extra wires from rattling, I used this wide foam tape from Home Depot.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Bui...x-30-ft-Camper-Seal-Foam-Tape-02352/202066511
Attachments
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