so I really want a tv in my 8 but no one in new orleans knows anything about 8's...a guy offered to mount a stand alone monitor on my dash as long as i could get the oem navigation housing but he wants $500 for labor minus the parts...i need suggestions please and if you got pics, that would be great..thanks!

 

Welcome to the club first off..secondly--that OEM housing is like gold on here--there is a long line of us that want that piece without paying the Mazda extortion level price. Do you want it retractable? If not, you can buy the NAV tray assembly and easily mount a screen there--the problem is that its not a concealable unit.

 

well i was thinking of an in-dash flip out but the problem is that i can't put it anywhere and that nav tray just stays up all the time

 

I'm going to be building one of these in the near future. I'll post pics when it is ready. It will replace the top panel and be cut for a single din style unit, be it a cd or foldout dvd screen. Will it be cheap, no as it is custom fabrication. Will it do the job properly, yes.

 

Being a former Katrinaville resident I can help you out with a good performance shop. At the moment I can't remember the name of this guy's shop. It was on 4th Street, right before Manhatten if you were goin toward the canal. His ECU of preference was Haltech and he had some really neato rides, a couple of RX-7's, twin turbo miata, and some other stuff. His name is Allen. I can't remember the ****** name of the shop. But hell...with all the **** that's happened he probably didn't reopen after the storm. Hell, I'll remember, after a nap.

 

yeah i know him..he did some custom work for me with my sub..house of sounds right?

 

nahhhhhh......what is the name of his place

 

IMHO $500 is way too much for labour without the parts...

 

As a custom installer, you get what you pay for. Paint finish for piano black is not cheap, nor is bondo, resin, sanding, time, more time and yet more time. Taking apart the dash, masking everything off so as to protect the vehicle from damage all is part of the $500.00 this person charges. For me to consider this project, knowing full well right now exactly what it entails and the desired result for the paying customer, this is easily a full day job on the fabrication. If you have not done it, why guess on what you think it should cost? Dive in and try it for yourself, add up all the items necessary to build it, from the brushes and containers for the resin to the sandpaper to the glass matting and bondo. You would be really surprised at how quick things add up. Then take the time to properly mask off the entire dashboard area, top to bottom, steering wheel, center console, floor mats and seats so as that no resin may accidentally spill onto the car. Why work on it in the car you say when you can take the panel off and work on it out of the car? Because the form of the panel is rigid when it is attached to the dashboard, take it out and it will sag, then cut out the center section and it sags again. So make the panel out of the vehicle all you want, expect it to come out perfect, go and put it in and it will not clip back into place. Sometimes there are things that the experienced installer knows first hand yet never shares with the customer, sometimes the customer is thinking FAKME, this guy wants how much for a simple job, yet they never really understand exactly what the job entails. This is the reason that I have a new dashboard here to work on. I can work on this dashboard all I want, make all the panels I need to and not worry about damaging the customers car nor wasting my time masking their entire car off. Consider what I am saying when you think the quote is too high in your opinion.

 

i totally understand where you're coming from, but im on a budget right now soo i can't really afford to get custom work done..i just wish i could find the nav housing easily that way i can save money

 

www.car-parts.com Search for gps/info screen. This is where myself and another member found our Nav hoods. Hope that helps.