redneck iPod in-car connection

Also, with Alpine decks, more expensive models pretty much only have more features. Most of them are useless unless you're connecting amps. Cheaper sounds the same if you're doing a simple swap of your factory deck and nothing else.

The iPod is controlled through the deck, not the iPod itself, much like a CD changer would bd controlled.

Kbarkamian - I have the premium JBL head unit. Car Toys told me that it was too integrated into the rest of the electronics to replace without rewiring the entire truck. For the money I was willing to spend they suggested either just upgrading the speakers or leaving things alone. I tend to trust people that essentially tell me to keep my money.

Didn't realize you had the JBL deck/system. Haven't heard it, so I take my bashing back.

Crutchfield has something they state can be plugged into most factory systems. Maybe give them a call? They're pretty good about that stuff. They're not like the Best Buy clowns who make it up as they go, as they'll call the manufacturer if they don't know the answer exactly. They did this when I was asking about a Sonos system a while back.

This is a piece of cake in my F-150 with Sync, but honestly, the CD player still sounds much, much better.

This morning I had an iPod integration unit installed in my 2004 Toyota Sequoia with the premium JBL sound system. The mobil tech came to the house and attempted to install a unit that would allow some iPod control through the head unit, but he couldn't get it to work. It appears that even though the head unit has a plug for an auxiliary CD changer there isn't any switch mechanism built in to any of the button to activate it. I've heard that this head unit is a difficult mess and I'm wondering if it's one of those features that Toyota has built in for manufacturing purposes that isn't actually functional on my head unit.

In the end, he installed a unit that connects into the FM antenna and seems to sound just fine. Since it's hard wired it shouldn't have the same types of interference issues that the cheap-o ones do. The final bill was $120 and now we have a much cleaner connection compared to the tape adapter and the iPod gets charged when connected.