I have a 2006 X-Type with a regular CD/radio (no touchscreen) and I want to upgrade to something that plays MP3s from USB or SD card or bluetooth phone. Having a backup camera and GPS too would be a plus.

I see a lot of inexpensive Chinese Radios with Bluetooth and GPS going from less than $100 on up to $500 or $1000 if you want a brand you ever actually heard of before.

This " " one is $175

There's a
and a Sony for $350 that doesn't appear to have GPS.

And a no-name that's only $116

And then there are a lot of Android 8 units like this one for $261, or this one with Android 7 for only $97.

I've had the dash open and pulled out the bracket holding the radio and climate controls before.

Beyond finding a path up to the top of the dash for the GPS antenna, and out to the back plate for the camera, is this going to be a fairly easy swap that I could do myself? Do the connectors from the factory radio wiring harness fit these new units? Or do you have to methodically splice a couple dozen wires to use the connectors that come with these units?

 

270+ people looked at this - and no replies. Hmmm - usually lots of helpful advice here, but maybe the question should have gone on a car audio forum instead. Anyway, I'll answer my own query, maybe its useful to someone.

I ended up going to a local car audio shop and talking it over with them. After telling them that the GPS and backup camera were "nice but not necessary", they recommended a Kenwood unit and the same Sony unit that I had found myself online. I ended up having them install the Sony unit for $800. Best Buy offers that unit for $400 with free installation, but I don't really care for the local best buy or their help. You usually "get what you pay for" and I'm more interested in having it done right than stumbling around figuring it out myself - and likely breaking a few things in the process.

The Sony has Android Auto, which mirrors your phone - and it's pretty awesome. You run Waze on your phone, and MediaMonkey for your playlists, and you control it from the Sony unit in the dash. So, there's really no need for built in GPS - and since your phone's always going to be more "up-to-date" a built-in GPS would be worse. (My 04 XJR has the factory GPS - and it is by far the worst and most awkward GPS I have ever seen.) The Sony does support a backup camera - but that would have cost another $250, so I passed on that - maybe I'll add it later when my neck no longer works right.

I bought a "Bezel Kit" for $50 in advance - which includes an adapter so that you don't need to cut off the original wiring harness connector - and gave them the kit when I dropped the car off for the install.

Unfortunately I did have one "surprise" - which wasn't really a surprise. I bought this car about a month ago, and had noticed that the driver's / rear driver's door speakers weren't producing any sound. I was thinking it was the typical "moisture got on the amp in the trunk" situation that I have read about here, but after installing the new unit they called me down to the shop to show me that three of the four door speakers were blown out. They demonstrated by turning on the radio with the old speaker - silence! - and then connecting a new speaker - sound! When new, this car had the "Alpine 120w" audio upgrade - and I was surprised to see the quality of speakers that were in there - the 6.5" drivers in the doors had plain paper cones and TINY magnets on the back - about one inch in diameter. No visible damage - but clearly not working at all. (The original upgraded audio also included two speakers under the parcel shelf at the rear window - which have big meaty 5-inch magnets - and those were still ok, so they were left as-is.)

So I had to spring for four new speakers for the doors. They installed Memphis Extreme Audio PRX60C drivers like these as replacements. I'm not an audiophile by any stretch, but they sound great to me. I ended up spending a couple hundred more than I had hoped to spend, but they did a nice job wiring the dash connector and the microphone. The phone audio plays through the system and you can dial your contacts from there too. Awesome. Wiring for the door speakers was run to the amp location in the trunk and connected to the existing harness back there. The old amp that weighs a ton is out - they told me there's nothing wrong with it - and in a box with the old radio (Yes, I horde parts. My XJR has the infamous "no sound" problem - and since it is exactly the same amp, I'm going to try swapping them to see if that fixes it - and yank the trunk CD changer if it doesn't.)

In the end, I spent more than I was hoping to spend - but I'm glad I did it.

I only wish I had done this years ago on the old X-type - 9 years of shuffling CDs and squinting at a smartphone - what a dumbass!

Now you can all chime in to tell me I paid too much and I should have done it myself - what a dumbass!

But at least I'm a happy dumbass rolling down the road with my new car audio getup! Yipee Kay Yay!!!!

 

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I did a similar this a few week ago ... Installing the reversing camera wasn't too hard.... Just need to run a length of coax ... I used industrial microwave coax because it's thin and low loss oh and free as it was left over from a machine install ....the HU is one of those under 30 quid MP5 units from eBay ....it's not the fastest but it works A-OK.