403portside

I have had my 06 for 2 yrs and love it. Only 19K miles on the clock and the car is pretty much in showroom condition. This could be an incredible car to keep for the next 5-7 yrs especially since getting into a new one would require justifying another $60k or so (though I could afford to do it).

So in thinking about keeping the car for the long haul, I've been asking myself what I might like to change to make it more usable. I keep coming back to the electronics -- and have narrowed my focus on the Pioneer AVIC 140 with nav, Bluetooth, iPod, pandora, etc. it's a $2300 outlay and it looks like the double din kits nowadays have oem fit and finish, so I'm compelled to explore doing this.

Anyone have thoughts on this upgrade? If you've done it, are u glad you did?

Thanks for the advice.

403portside

bump!

Bruce R

I have an '06, just 20k miles too and you are correct the electronics are one area where the car feels dated. I upgraded some years back to a Dension iPod and bluetooth, both work OK. That cost me about a $1k with install. For $2.3 & nav that might be a good deal - assuming it keeps the OEM look!

PS mine looks so good I won a prize at our local Oktoberfest this Saturday.

Money Pit 951

The stock head unit is a little dated, but with the integration with the rest of the car and amp it's a fairly nice unit. The dension gets you phone, ipod, streaming music to your head unit while keeping it factory. I'm having problems with my dension's phone functions, but I'm told it works for other people. The interface is a little clunky through the head unit, but you can also use the ipod interface which is much easier. Personally I'm not a big fan of car nav systems as the cell network (phone) based ones have much better integration with what I want and better maps/traffic feeds.
Also factor in an external amp. Those small internal amps just aren't going to push those speakers that well.

But in the end, how much time are you even spending in the car? You have a 6 year old car with 19K miles, so you've just started to put your impressions in the seat bottom. And if it's a convertible, put the top down and get some music out of the big loud 6 cylinder speaker in the back.