Battery Disconnect?

[WolfieG]

Do I need to disconnect the battery to remove the factory stereo?

The Haynes manual says that you do so as not to risk deploying the airbags, but if I disconnect the battery I then need to track down someone with a Vagcom to reset the ECM.

How safe is it to remove the radio with the battery still connected?

[Smileybug]

You shouldn't need to reset anything if you disconnect the battery. I've disconnected mine everytime I've touched anything on the radio (I added an aux cable to the back of the first radio I had in the car, and had to mess with my current head unit a bit after it was installed...always had aftermarket in mine though). I also just replaced the battery a few months ago and nothing needed to be reset.

[sean_fabanich]

if youve broken a mirror in the past 7 years and thats ur kinda luck...then yeah...disconnect the battery...but as long as you just disconnecting the harnesses and not pulling wires apart or cutting them...then there is nothing to worry about...even in that case really the worst thing that could happen would be blowing the radio fuse...

ive replaced hundreds if not thousands of radios...and havent disconnected a batter yet. and never had any problems.