Me: Yeah I'm focusing on track prep now
Also Me: *proceeds buy bs off Aliexpress bc it looks cool
You guessed it folks I got an Aliexpress virtual cockpit
Why? I was jealous of euro MK7.5s getting them stock but wasn't about to fork over nearly $2k for OEM. I also mentally filed this under "track prep" bc theoretically I will be able to use screen mirroring to display my Simostools gauges to monitor at the track.
Install was straight forward, just a pain bc the car did not want to come apart haha the trim around the headunit didn't want to fully detach so I removed it just enough to remove the gauge trim and subsequently free the cluster
Installed
here are just some of the gauge layouts.
Overall impressions are that it's great, especially for the money (~$450 shipped). A couple gripes but nothing major so far, the 1st one being the chrome trim around the cluster doesn't match the satin silver trim everywhere else and produces a slight glare if the sun hits it just right. Nothing crazy and likely easy to remedy though. Also the sport guages, like the two I posted, have shift lights that appear in the tach (just like in the Audis with those gauges) but they start flashing red at ~4k lol. Might be fine if you have a TDI, but a little annoying otherwise. I didn't see a setting to adjust this but I messaged the seller to see if theres a solution. Also, I have a manual gearbox, and when it shows your current gear, it's displayed as "D3" (or whatever gear you're in), would be nice if it just said "3" or even "M3", but again, not a huge concern.
Still have to try screen mirroring out, will report back on that, but I'm pretty stoked!