My rex, which is a beautifully preserved 2006 model, sadly came without the nav hood....Which is a shame as I would have loved to have popped a tablet in there....

In a desperate search for a way to integrate both a nifty satnav and Torque readout via a bluetooth OBD II dongle I've found this:

Single 1 DIN 7 Inch Android 4.0 Car DVD Player Stereo Radio GPS WiFi 3G Ipod FM | eBay

While I'd rather stick with OEM the temptation of having a DVD player and fully fledged android tablet is potentially irrisistable..........so........

Does anyone know if this will fit? I've tried searching but as it's a specific hardware question I couldn't find the info i needed.

Is it a simple matter of swapping out the existing console? would it fit ok? any considerations for other things in the central column of the car?

All advice much appreciated!! Thanks all!


PS - Love my new Rex :-D

 

guessing the reason there are no replies is ive had to post this in the new members board....all advice welcome pretty please folks!

desperate to finish kitting my rex out and this would be a great way to add bluetooth, streaming, sat nav and speed cam alerts onto it!

would need to be a pretty solution mind you.

thoughts help much appreciated.

btw - mpg worries are nonsense! i got 28mpg on my commute home today - although when i optimise for smiles per gallon its much more fun!

 

Moved to Audio/Electronics for you.

 

Thanks!! Here's hoping someone knows the answer because I'm itching to buy this :-D

PS - 31.1 MPG on my late night trip home according to Torque......unless i've got it configured wrongly my MPGs are pretty imrpessive! (almost no traffic on the motorway and relatively few stops in the city)

 

It's wrong I had to adjust the car's attributes to ridiculous values in order to get the number on what i was actually getting. But that's a different topic.

 

That's a single din radio so yes you could fit it using the Metra single din dash kit. Picture on amazon is not right - that looks like the double din version.

I'd recommend finding a double din pure android 4.2 head unit and getting the metra double din kit. Looks cleaner.

 

got any suggestions?

 

I've heard mostly good things about those chinese double din android head units on ebay. I don't know which ones are the best, but I know you can get a good one for around 300. I would check out the youtube video reviews of each.

Word of advice if your search takes you in this direction: stay AWAY from the Pioneer AppRadio. They have a lot of issues, and the audio quality isn't as good as most aftermarket head units. Very buggy all around. And very slow.

 

Funny, because I've been yanking failed ones out of cars left and right lately. Also, while I advise my customers to avoid the no-name Chinese mess on eBay, if they bring it to me and pay me, I'll install it. I've had two that were defective right out of the box. One wouldn't even power up on my test bench and the other powered up but would never leave the splash screen. And while you might argue that every company is bound to have the occasional DOA unit, I install hundreds and hundreds Pioneers/Alpines/Kenwoods each year. A DOA unit is EXTREMELY rare. I'd say under one a year from all the major manufacturers combined.

But hey, there's a ton of various no-name companies making these from all parts of the world. I can't speak to each and every individual random manufacturer. So YRMV.

 

Then i stand corrected. I would read others' reviews of specific units very carefully. Alternative approach is buying a nav hood (or using your existing nav screen area if your car has it) and installing an android tablet.

You can run the android tablet through a DAC like an audison bit ten or bit one (or many others) with superb audio quality.

 

Any of the screens like that are almost always garbage. I speak from a professional standpoint that have installed a few. After I had more than a couple go out and come back complaining I do not install them anymore. They have this motor thats basically a fan running them. (Makes the screen fold in and out) Once this fan goes, you're done. So I will refuse to install them if I believe this will be the case. Yes, not every one of them is that way, but I would say most.

 

Yup.

 

Hmmmm strong warnings taken to heart. I'm told replacing the head unit to get the nav hood is a total nightmare? It would possibly be the simplest way if it weren't a massive undertaking? I'd love to simply do a tablet mount in the nav hood if I had one (it would also mean I didn't need to sacrifice the steering wheel controls (I need the Kanatech version apparently as my aircon is auto and couldn't even find the adaptor everyone is referring to needed to preserve steering wheel button funciton Kanatechs Stereo Kit | RX8 Stereo Install Kit ......... Certainly enough to give me pause for thought. Also the only reasons I was considering a 1 din popout was in the hope of making it less obvious to thieves and to have the screen a tiny little bit higher - a nav hood would be better on both counts if easily doable......But as I say I don't have it by default....

Another problem I've been having with my temporary navigation solution (a vent mount and FM transmitter for my phone (much less cool than my bluetooth enabled android carputer dreams) is also less than ideal as the ariel on my rx8 seems terribly bad (even normal stations have a fair few problems with static - more so than on other cars) and it's so bad that my FM transmitter has a perminant background static hiss - if I don't play music to hide it it gets annoying! I went for this transmiter http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161318154072?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Does anyone have any tips on either/both:

1. Improving the ariel on an RX8?

2. Any FM transmitter brands which they know transmit well enough to get round this problem??

In the longer term a nav hood mounted nexus tablet sounds like my ideal solution.....but can it be done?

 

• Single din is more noticeable to thieves - often looks less factory than a clean/flush double din screen with subtle buttons.
• There are a bunch of people who did the nav hood mod and posted about the process. It's not hard, but definitely requires planning, part sourcing, and some money. Search.
• FM transmitters don't ever sound good in my experience. Not even as good as bluetooth. If you want high quality audio, you need a wired connection from your phone to the H/U.
• The static noise you are hearing could be a ground loop issue if your phone and/or the FM transmitter is receiving any power from the car's 12v. You need to install a ground loop isolator to fix this. I don't even know how you wire/fit that with an FM transmitter though - would look pretty messy. You will also need a ground loop isolator running aux cables, etc to your phone if you ever want to charge it at the same time you are playing music.
• Search search search all of these answers are buried throughout the forum and on google

 

Use an over your transmitter any day. No static. No searching for a good station. 100X better.

The Nav hood retrofit has been done several times. Don't know if I'd call it a total nightmare, but it's certainly a royal PITA. Don't expect to do it in a day or two, and expect issues and troubleshooting.

I'd recommend just going with an aftermarket double-din and the Metra kit, or using the FM modulator I linked about and living with the factory radio.

 

Alternatively, you could go with an AUX input which will give you the highest fidelity audio. I installed it in my factory Bose RX8 in about 45 minutes and the sound quality from my phone's 3.5mm audio jack is superb.

Here: http://www.sylfex.com/products/AuxMod/

Either way, if you are planning on charging your phone at the same time that you are playing music, you will want to pick up a ground loop isolator too.