Weekend Project: ipod2car

April 20th, 2008 | Weekend Project | No Comments

Ever since I got my first car – ipod integration was a necessity.  My first car only had a cassette player so even CDs were out of the question.  Not being mechanically inclined (I don’t even change my own oil, which reminds me…) I opted for the FM transmitter route.  Plug one end of the cable into the cigarette lighter, the other into the ipod, tune both the transmitter and the stereo to the same change and presto you can listen to your ipod in the car.

There was 2 major downsides though – a) driving into another city and occasionally in the same city you would get interference and 2) my gps also needed to use my one and only cigarette lighter when it was low on power.  Obviously trying to drive and change frequencies was out of the question (especially on the highway) and my gps ended up taking a backseat to my ipod.

So looking around for other options – new stereo that had an auxiliary in or ipod hook-up and then I saw ipod2car.  Sure enough they had one at my local BestBuy for my VW Golf ’03 and reading the back of the box it seemed easy enough.  AndI figured if I found that I was out of my element then I would get it “professionally” installed. 

The ipod2car connects to the back of your factory (guessing also aftermarket) sterio, meaning you will need to disassemble your dash.  Did I meantion I don’t even change my own oil.  After a little bit of search vwvortex.com, I figured out that I need some special key that fit into the slots circled below and you will need 2 – one for each side.    I opted for just 2 pieces of metal fit though mangled up my fingers pretty good.  Once both keys are in the stereo will just slide out with a little pull.

Dash disassemble

The ipod2car connects to the back of the CD player so I also had to slide that out (easier once the stereo unit is out).  Now there are 8 dip switches on the ipod2car box thingy you will need to set first.  The manual that comes in the box is pretty clear on which ones need to be in which position for your model. 

Once I had the ipod2car box thingy connected to the back of the CD player, it was a matter of running the wire from the box out to the dash so I could attach my ipod.  Back to vwvortex.com and I figured out how to detach (hint: there are 3 screws on the bottom) the glove box just enough to get my hand in so I could pull the wire through.  Now VW was nice enough to leave a hole in the top the glove box that I just pulled the wire through.  Seems like they were anticipating this… 

Running the cable through the glove box

And then running the cable from the glove box to the centre dash

Cable along the console

And the finished product

final result

Now for my actual setup, I don’t actually have the ipod mounted like that.  I don’t want to have to tuck away the ipod each time I park and it gets in the way of a bunch of the controls and the cup holders - but don’t let me persuade you from trying it out.

In order to use my ipod, I have to set the stereo to CD and then select CD Changer which isn’t a huge deal since it remembers.  It is possible to control some aspects of the ipod from the stereo buttons – really just next, previous, skip forward and skip backwards.  Everything I read online seemed to indicate that it wasn’t possible to have the song title or artist display on the stereo.  This may be possible with newer stereos…

Pros

  • Sound quality rivals playing a CD
  • Discrete
  • Easy enough to install (a most likely fairly inexpensive to have installed – think case of beer to your car friend)
  • Pauses when you turn off the car and resumes from where you left off
  • Cigarette lighter can now be used for other things
  • Charges ipod when not playing
  • Compatible with most car stereos and ipods (believe 1st & 2nd gen ipods aren’t supported)
  • Widely available

Cons

  • Next and previous on the stereo skip a song (i.e., next will go 2 songs ahead) – this may because I didn’t set the dip switches properly or one got flipped while trying to install it behind the CD Player
  • Replaces CD Changer and/or Satellite Radio??
  • Not as inexpensive or easy to install as the FM transmitter or cassette deck options

Next step, voice activation…

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