scottndsky
New member
First post to the forum!!
My son and I just finished a head unit upgrade in his 2001 SR5. Santa delivered a Sony XAV-AX3000 with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So far, we’re really impressed. This was a very exciting upgrade for a high school student who doesn’t own any CDs, and wouldn’t know what to do if you handed him a cassette tape.
Parts used:
Installation was fairly straightforward, but it had a few challenges:
We plan to add a backup camera at some point, so we routed additional wires from the head unit under the driver’s carpet to make them easier to tap into later: ACC Power and Ground (to power the camera), Reverse In, and Camera RCA In. Note that some people power their cameras with the reverse light circuit. However, running the ACC Power back to the camera seems like a better way to go. The Sony HU has a backup camera soft button, so you can view the camera without putting the car in reverse. You couldn’t do that if your camera was hard-wired to the reverse lights. Anyway, that’s a project for another day…
This purchase was mainly inspired by my desire for my son to keep both hands on the wheel. With Apple CarPlay it seems like you should be able to plug in your cell phone (before you start driving) and then PUT IT DOWN. There’s really no reason to mount the phone anywhere else on the dash or windshield. The other inspiration was the burned-out backlight in the original radio. At night the radio was completely dark, and I’ve read that repairing them nearly impossible.
I hope this was helpful. I spent a lot of time researching this forum prior to this purchase. I really appreciate all of helpful contributions on this thread, as well as many others.
My son and I just finished a head unit upgrade in his 2001 SR5. Santa delivered a Sony XAV-AX3000 with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So far, we’re really impressed. This was a very exciting upgrade for a high school student who doesn’t own any CDs, and wouldn’t know what to do if you handed him a cassette tape.
Parts used:
- Sony XAV-AX3000 (On Sale at Best Buy for $280 + tax)
- Metra 70-1761 wire harness ($4.79 from Amazon)
- Single Port 3ft USB 3.0 Male to Female AUX Car Mount Flush Cable ($9.90 from Amazon)
- Metra 40-UV43 Male to Female Motorola Antenna Cable ($5.83 on Amazon)
- Scosche MDAB 1988-Up GM Micro/Delco Antenna Adapter Tip ($6.69 on Amazon)
Installation was fairly straightforward, but it had a few challenges:
- Wire harness prep… We soldered and shrink-wrapped all the wires in the harness – no crimp connectors. This took a while, but it resulted in a very solid and tidy bundle of wires. We chose to connect the parking brake wire to ground instead of wiring it to the actual E-brake handle. Normally this “feature” would prevent you from viewing pictures or videos from a USB stick unless you had the parking brake on. Grounding the wire as we did defeated this protection. It was just easier, and we didn’t think watching USB movies is something we really needed anyway.
- USB extension… The Sony manual warns against extending the USB port, but we extended it by 3 ft anyway. We wanted a clean look, so we chose to replace the cigarette lighter and keep the two lower sockets for other accessories. There were two challenges: We had difficulty getting the original cigarette socket and bulb out of the dash bezel. It just wasn’t clear how to get that thing out without completely destroying it. Eventually we got it. Second, the USB mount from Amazon was a slightly bigger than the hole through the bezel, so I had to grind down the inner circular edge with a belt sander. This was tricky, but we managed to get it to drop into the hole and mount flush against the metal bezel. We also painted the metal bezel before installing the locking nut behind it. In the end I wish we had found a USB panel mount what was small enough to fit inside the white plastic ring of the original cigarette lighter. It looks clean the way it is, but the USB port is difficult to see at night. It would have been really cool to have a lighted ring around the USB port.
- Microphone… It was difficult to decide where to put the included microphone. The microphone comes with a clip intended for a visor, or something else. We opted to clip it to the handle on the A-pillar. The mic is very sensitive. You could probably mount it *behind* the dash and it would still work. We could have tucked it away somewhere less conspicuous, but we left it on the handle for now. From the head unit the wire runs underneath the carpet behind the pedals and up to the handle.
We plan to add a backup camera at some point, so we routed additional wires from the head unit under the driver’s carpet to make them easier to tap into later: ACC Power and Ground (to power the camera), Reverse In, and Camera RCA In. Note that some people power their cameras with the reverse light circuit. However, running the ACC Power back to the camera seems like a better way to go. The Sony HU has a backup camera soft button, so you can view the camera without putting the car in reverse. You couldn’t do that if your camera was hard-wired to the reverse lights. Anyway, that’s a project for another day…
This purchase was mainly inspired by my desire for my son to keep both hands on the wheel. With Apple CarPlay it seems like you should be able to plug in your cell phone (before you start driving) and then PUT IT DOWN. There’s really no reason to mount the phone anywhere else on the dash or windshield. The other inspiration was the burned-out backlight in the original radio. At night the radio was completely dark, and I’ve read that repairing them nearly impossible.
I hope this was helpful. I spent a lot of time researching this forum prior to this purchase. I really appreciate all of helpful contributions on this thread, as well as many others.
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