so after years of searching for a cheap one i picked up a seat leon climatronic panel for about 30 pounds shipping included from ebay (its the same as the pre facelift 8l one but it has the button design/style from the facelift units, I just wanted the facepanel cause im pretty sure it is a direct fit on the a3 climatronic unit.
The 8l one is looking really dated these days and when i fit the double din cage, i want to modernise the centre console abit.
So one week later and aramax delivered my package from the other side of the equator on friday
here's a direct comparison between the 2
so the guy that advertised this on ebay sold this for spares or repairs but when it arrived it seemed to be in a good condition and since both mine and the seat cc units are D revisions i decided to plug it in and it worked 100% perfectly.
so instead of trying to make the seat front panel fit on the audi unit,om going to use the seat one since the seat model also has better icons and graphics on the lcd, im just gonna try and fit some red leds in there to replace the orange ones and make things look uniform.
made some brackets to mount it inside the double din facelift cage
and a fibreglass surround that still needs some filling and trimming
now i just need to make a final decision on what headunit im going for.