iPod Car Kits?
 

So I have about 150 CDs in my car right now. It's inconvenient to shuffle through the spool to find what I want. Are there any cheap (and good) solutions?

I found some iPod kits that get hardwired to your car, but they would require professional installation (I don't know jack about car electronics) and more money. FM tuners might be a good solution, but I have only tried iTrip and that sucked ass. Perhaps there is something better than iTrip I don't know about?

I have a plug that's hard wired into my car stereo. It wasn't that hard to do and it was quite cheap. I can't charge my ipod, but it works for me. It sits comfortably hidden in my front console. If I recall correctly, you can search for adapters for your particular car or stereo at Crutchfield.com.

How much was the installation?

What kind of car do you have? I installed my own kit. All it took was $125 for the adapter and an afternoon with basic tools doing the installation. I have absolutely no prior experience doing this stuff, so if I could figure it out, just about anyone could.

My wife had an Ipod adapter installed for somewhere around $80 parts and labor at Best Buy, but I agree with ubertuber, car stereos aren't that hard to deal with. I had no prior experience when I installed the stereo that's currently in our car.

I have a 2002 Protege ES. I checked out some guides online and they require taking off the vents, removing stereo...I'd rather not mess with that myself for fear of breaking something.

What adapter did you wife buy? $80 for the whole deal sounds very reasonable to me.

It was a very "bare bones" adapter that was designed to fit our brand of stereo (not the factory installed stereo). I will say that my wife said "around $80". So, it might have been as high as $100.

Well, seeing as how my stereo doesn't have an AUX port (otherwise I wouldn't have made this thread), I'd have to shell out for that too.

I think the FM transmitter is my best option right now. Any good ones?

My deck has Aux ports in the rear soI just bought a 2 dollar wire that plugs in the back of the stereo and into the headphone jack works great, then again I install my own stereo stuff much cheaper :D

I have Belkin TuneCast II that is a general "headphone jack to FM" thing.
It has 2 features that I find very neat. It works both on batteries or cigarette lighter (12v) and it can store 4 FM frequences.
The 12V adapter also has a splitter so the MP3 player/Ipod can be powered at the same time (given the plug fits the player).
There are other models that are specially made for Ipods.
Yours
Zweiblumen

The FM transmitter will have the least desirable sound quality of any method you use. Does your stereo provide an option for a CD changer (factory or otherwise)? That's the connection I used. It was on the back of the unit, but it really was less scary than you'd think to get to it.

I used a harman kardon drive+play when I had a car and offers the most convenient iPod control IMO. They have a new model out which looks very snazzy... it does require you to access the back of your stereo though.

If that is your only option it is a horrible one because ALL FM transmitters suck ass. They blow... Don't do it.

Go to Best Buy and get an Alpine head unit with iPod controls and see if they'll throw in the iPod cable because many times they will or wait until they have a sale when they trow one in for free because they do it all the time. Then just pay the extra $50 to have them install it if you're not comfortable doing it. Hard wired into the radio is the only way to get decent sound.

I have an iTrip, so I know all about crappy sound quality. I just hate the way it is implemented, so I was looking for alternatives.

Is there any way to find out if my stereo has an option for a CD changer? I checked my car's manual and it doesn't have anything on the stereo inputs. It's a standard 2002 Protege ES stereo. Double din.

I was toying with an idea of just getting a full new deck with an AUX port or an iPod USB interface, but I really don't want to get a single din because of aesthetics. I'm not familiar with the car audio market at all, so are there any affordable double din decks out there? By affordable I mean under $150.

Not unless you know someone who's selling something. New will cost a bit over $200.

Any brands I should be looking at?

At the low end of the price point, there won't be much a difference between brands, especially for double din units. My buddy recently put a Blaupunkt DD in his truck, and it was a nice piece.

x2 on the FM transmitters. Ever since the FCC regulated how strong the transmitters could be, it will sound terrible if you can even get it to work at all. Thats part of the reason why the old Sirius and XM radios could be heard fine with the FM transmitters, but you're almost obligated to use an aux port or FM modulator with the new units.

On your budget and entry level brand will work just fine.
Circuit City has this on sale. Free installation and labor and according to the Sunday ads a free iPod cable. I'm not sure if free installation and labor include wiring harness and dash kit. You may want to swing by and take a look.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/JVC-K...oductDetail.do

Well there's a blast from the past, I haven't seen you in a year or two.

I used to have a Belkin TuneCast II for a couple of years, before I had an iPod - it was good, but not obviously any good for charging.

I bought 5th gen iPod recently, and we went on a long road trip this week, so I took the chance to buy a Griffin iTrip Auto (like this)

http://www.maccomputersupply.com/har...91-ITAS-01.jpg

Having used it for the week, I can say that the sound quality is great, it is ridiculously easy to use, and charges the iPod.

When you say great, do you mean great when compared to your average radio station?

I've got one that is hard-wired into my stereo, but my stereo is Kenwood and I had to buy the Kenwood attachment.

It works perfectly (no interference from radio stations and such), though it doesn't charge my iPod Touch like it did my Nano. However, my Nano's battery is now crap because of the sporadic charging, I'm sure.

I mean great compared to FM radio - but actually, compared to an old school cassette interface that I had ages ago for my first in car CD player (gasp!) it's good.

I grew up with AM radio, home taped 2nd generation cassettes, and very noisy cars - I'm not after or expecting HiFi quality in my car - when I'm driving with my family I play it medium/loud (quietly enough to talk over, but loud enough that you can hear all the instruments and vocals). When I'm on my own, I play it louder, but not loud enough to rattle the glass.

Given that it cost 1/4 of the best offer I got for a fully fitted unit, I'm happy.

Well, I said fuck it and bought a new deck for my car.

This one:

http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Produ...larion&tp=5684

I installed it yesterday...but it didn't work. Apparently you had to hardwire the power cable into the fuse box (or the car battery). Since I didn't know the first thing on how to go about it, I got together with my friend tonight and together (using a stripped computer cord), extended the cable to the in-cabin fuse box. And...it works!

Integrated iPod controls and you can even browse through music folders if you just copy music in bulk on a USB media storage (thumb drive or the iPod). Very, very cool.

Cool, glad to see you just bought a new head unit. It's pretty simple to change those out. Plus, Crutchfield gives you all the installation gear you need. They should've included a wire to run over to your fuse box. I ordered my stuff from them and had to do the same thing in my VW Rabbit.

If you would've wired it directly to the battery you would have to turn the power button off on the radio to turn it off or it would always be on even with the key out of the car. The power should be connected in your fuse box to something that only works when the key is on like your wipers.

Crutchfield didn't provide me with an extended wire, so we used used a computer cord (one wire out of 3). The point is that it works and the cable isn't overheating, so I'm happy.

Looks nice. Clarion make some great stuff.

That wasn't an option for me, as my car has a fully integrated stereo that is part of the console.