In car tech

DD265

I will be starting motorway commuting soon, which my 17 year old Fiesta has never done before! We've given it a service and some new front tyres plus a bit of a clean up. Next on the list is a new cam belt and checking the oil level in the gear box. OH's step dad who did the service is happy that there are plenty of years left in my little car.

There are three things I'm considering and could do with some advice on...
1) hands free of some description would be a good idea. I have an iPhone 3GS so it does have bluetooth. Not sure how I'd feel about wearing one of those ear thingys as I drive in sunglasses all the time.

2) music - I am lucky enough to have a CD player. The stereo is compatible with a 6 CD changer (it's a Ford 6000CD RSD EON) but I don't have one of those. Doesn't appear to have an AUX port and no cassette player. Are there any cheap options to connect my phone to the car? Maybe I'll just suck it up and keep writing CDs!

3) Satnav. I am on PAYG so no cheap internet for me. I have an old TomTom Go 700 which has been absolutely fine until I was going for an interview and then it froze. Managed to get it reset and back running with a lot of difficulty, but now I'm not 100% that I trust it. I did have a map in the boot but the scale wasn't big enough for what I needed when it came down to it.

Is there a neat solution that could help me out with these three things but not cost the earth?

DUTR

1) Bluetooth does not have to be an ear piece device, and many fit fine whilst wearing specs, the sun visor one maybe more useful.

2) If there is an aux button on the radio, then the 3.5mm socket maybe in the glove box.

3) NavFree is a decent enough navigation app which does not use data for navigation.

PS the phone calls can wait.

almillar

The stereo - if it takes a CD changer, then there's a chance you can get an iPod/iPhone adaptor for it. Have a Google. Generally, it'll be a cable you connect to the back of the stereo, usually a proprietary connection with loads of pins, and maybe also stereo phono. This makes the stereo think it's connected to a CD changer. The first 'disc' on the changer is all your music, then the next 5 are your first 5 playlists. You can skip tracks etc this way, which is better than the aux method which just gives you a headphone jack. No idea if this is available for your head unit, but you can get great aftermarket stuff with far more features quite cheap second hand.

BeenThroughItAll

Personally I'd suggest buying a new head unit which has Bluetooth phone, iPhonepadpod connectivity and CD all-in-one. Plenty available for less than the cost of an integration cable plus BT headset/visor kit. Aldi/Lidl regularly do a sub-£50 one which I've had several of in various cars and they're fine.

Fascia adapter and a loom adapter and Bob's your uncle.

Stoke

Double Din gap in the dash?

Arfa__

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Personally I'd suggest buying a new head unit which has Bluetooth phone, iPhonepadpod connectivity and CD all-in-one. Plenty available for less than the cost of an integration cable plus BT headset/visor kit. Aldi/Lidl regularly do a sub-£50 one which I've had several of in various cars and they're fine.

Fascia adapter and a loom adapter and Bob's your uncle.

Yep do this. Put a Kenwood stereo in my Vauxhall. USB socket at back routed to glove box and a 32Gb flash stick sorted out tunes. Built in bluetooth and a mic routed around dash up A-pillar and sticking near sun visor works really well. Combo solution like this works really well as it'll pause your tunes whilst you take a call, then auto resume, no need to touch anything throughout.

Trickiest past was finding an adaptor cable to allow control of stereo via existing steering wheel controls and drive dash display to show tune playing/person calling. However finding adaptor that just sort steering contols is much easier.

As for Sat Nav - don't bother spending money. Just get by with you existing TomTom for a week, then you'll soon remember the commute and probably never need it again. I assume you are commuting to the same location day in, day out?