Prius "must-haves" vs. "frills"

I COMPLETELY agree. At first, I was going to go with a non-NAV model, as I was having a hard time justifying what I initially saw as the huge expense for a nav system that I could get much cheaper, third-party. But as Thai points out, the one installed is so. much. more. Really.

At the dealership, I took my iPod in and tested sound quality using the USB vs. the AUX. Music through the USB connection sounded better than it did through the AUX (this is generally going to be the case, due to how sound is compressed...different topic). As an audiophile, this was of primo importance to me. After that, of course, is the screen/steering wheel control of your iPod or phone. I use that every day and have gotten so spoiled by it in a month that I couldn't imagine going back!

Strangely, I haven't even used the actual nav system all that much, but the mp3/phone interface is worth it to me, and the nav is just gravy.

Oh, and the backup camera rocks!

 

Toyo isn't the only option for an integrated iPod to the car's audio system. There's VAIS. Less $$$ than what Toyo charges.

 

That's one. How about your others?

 

It's all must have

 

I get all the advantages of buying aftermarket gadgets for lower prices to do what the factory gadgets can do. What I don't get is why would you hack up your brand new car for it? Sure it's cheaper but many cheap aftermarket installers don't have access to factory plugs for custom jobs. They'd cut the factory wireharness, they drill out holes, they break panels then glue them back together without you even know it. Being a new vehicle, they have almost no access to wiring diagrams so they have to find the wires the old fashion way. By the time you're done with the add ons you're pretty close to what the factory gadgets would have cost. Also all the gadgets you add on sticks out like a sore thumb. I mean a Garmin or a TomTom suction cupped to the windshield? c'mon that's tacky. Even if you bought an indash nav and have it installed, it would have cost at least 1,000 if they do it right. Then you risk not being able to get GPS signal. If they didn't install it correctly it wont work. The backup camera needs power and signal wire ran to the radio. It needs wires ran from the license plate area through the hatch, through the grommet, through the headliner, around the side airbags, down the C pillar, down the side of the car around the kickpanel, through the lower dash and to the radio. Sure when its all said and done, you won't see the wires but all the panels have been removed. There's higher chance that the same panel will break if removed again.

I used to charge $150 labor for standard alarm install. I had a customer that wanted the installation job to be factory looking and the starter kill not be visible. I've done a similar job on my Tacoma so I knew the work involved. It took me 3 days and I ended up charging the guy 850 labor +350 for parts.
I had to fix many cheap install jobs that look like Spaghetti wiring job. They hack up the factory harness when they shouldn't have.

Yes you can get many aftermarket gadgets but they don't function the same as the factory. I had Garmin and Tom Tom GPS. I sold them because they look out of place in my truck. and the sound quality of the voice just sucks.

BTW the USB port is more than just an iPod/iPhone adapter/charger. It also functions as USB OTG for storage devices. You can hook a flash drive to it, an HDD (someone on here hooked up a 1TB drive to it), almost any modern cellphones with memory card. I can turn my Tilt2 into a mass storage device when it's plugged into the USB and listen to the music from MicroSD card. It displays the ID tag infos. I can also pause, play, fast forward, rewind, skip tracks all using the radio and steering wheel control buttons. The USB port is not limited to iPods and iPhones. That's another feature that only higher end aftermarket navs have.

As for leaky roof, clear out the drain hose. My Tacoma is over 13 years old. It has a factory pop up moonroof. The only time it leaks when it's pouring rain and I had the moonroof popped up. Even then it only drips a few drops from the wind blowing the droplets into the interior.

 

I posted upstream that my '98 Saab 900 has a moonroof and it has never leaked.

My understanding is the VAIS unit does the same thing. And it doesn't have wires stringing like spaghetti all over, nor does it require breaking a harness. But I'm sure there are other aftermarket gadgets that have those issues. I wouldn't want those either.

That's true. They function better. Garmin as one example. I can afford a built-in NAV feature in my car but I'd still rather have a Garmin Nuvi, because I also take it and use it when I travel. It works wonderfully, the voice is fine, and it gives me a bunch of extras to boot. I've used it to explore different cities as a pedestrian, and I will use it when I go to Europe next year. BTW, I don't use suction cups to mount it to the car windshield. And if I was really lazy and never wanted to remove the Garmin from my auto, I could buy a 2nd Garmin unit just for travel and still have spent a LOT less than the built-ins.

Different strokes for different folks!

 

Now the real killer GPS app would be an integrated Prius mount where you just slide your best-in-class, 3rd party GPS unit (let's say Garmin) into the dedicated NAV space in the Prius console, where it looks and acts like a built-in NAV, integrates with everything, charges itself while docked, and is also removable and you can take it with you and use it powered by it's internal recharged battery. Best of both worlds!

 

Suzuki is doing a semi built in Garm1n unit on a couple of US models including the inexpensive SX4. Lowest price car with standard nav.

Garmin nuvi 700 series is Suzuki T.R.I.P: Suzuki SX4 to include navigation system : Specs, reviews and prices.

 

Bar leather I considered all must haves...and we ordered them all bar the sunroof as the 15" wheels is too much of a compromise for us...

 

I would rather have Toyota build a mount in the dash for the iPad than any other option.[/QUOTE]

+1

 

It would be nice if the auto industry would standardize so that this would be easily possible. Marine data buses are standardized so that the units from various manufactures will work together. Unfortunately, there is a negative profit incentive for auto companies to do this.

Tom

 

They have actually but yes not as easy as nmea....

There is SDAL for Maps, MOST/CAN for communications and if you know where to look it is easy to code it to the bus and make stuff work....

 

It's not a matter of compression that affects the sound quality. The compression was already done when you stored your music onto the MP3 player (assuming you are not using lossless formats). Music is sent digitally via USB into the headunit. Music is sent analog via the AUX thru the 3.5mm jack. The difference is where the digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) is done. If you prefer the USB, then the headunit is handling the D/A conversion better than the DAC inside your MP3 player. I would suspect the portable player to be inferior.

 

Or....the quality of the cabling for the AUX connection is very poor as could be the audio out on the MP3 player...Or the cabling is running next to power...Or...Or...Don't immediately blame the poor little processors ;-)

 

Point taken. In my experience with failing cables or weak connections, the sound would cut out intermittently, crackle or just sound obviously wrong. Now, if you are comparing a functional $5 cable vs $100 audiophile cable from Monster or Audioquest, I'm not going down that route. Been there. Done that. Most likely, it's the 5 cent DAC and amplification and whatever processing that goes on inside the MP3 player that is diminishing the SQ.

 

Yep fair enough, although I would class Monster in the $5 cable for $100 price category or at least here in the UK...I do think it is a little different in a vehicle installation as the quality of the cable and connections does make a difference, I wasn't referring to faulty connections but those prone of picking up interference of which there is lots in cars...

For example my iPhone sounds great using my ultimate ears headset...Yet using an aux it doesn't really....I really that isn't true for all mp3 players but it just isnt one sided...

 

This is technically correct; however, by way of clarification, the reason the sound is better through USB is because the digital transaction of the file through the USB cable is still a compressed MP3 file; the decompression does actually happen in the head unit, not at the digital player. When the signal goes through the AUX port, it is exactly the opposite. Although counterintuitively, one may think that a decompressed signal being sent through an audio cable would be better, the fact is that the decompressor in the head unit is far more efficient in decompressing and translating the sound than any handheld device, such as an iPod.

iPods translate their sound to the headphone jack with the expectation that ear buds, NOT an eight-speaker amplified sound system, will be the audio medium. So the decompressor on handheld units is, by design, not very powerful or efficient.

 

It just occurred to me... actually, the compression DOES matter, greatly. The bit rate and compression rate make an enormous difference.

But this is neither here nor there.

 

There are many, many different models iPods, and many many different models of head unit. You can't really generalise like that. Whilst I might not agree with the description I get the intent and that is sound, if it wasn't really that the codecs themselves are of very high quality you find them in nearly every studio that make the music in the first place and the design assumption of only using it with headphones is flawed when you look at apples certified product Programme. But even better hook it up to a decent home set. Besides the iPod connects to an amp and doesn't drive the speakers, a comment like that is just engineered to get the general public on your side without actually having a point.

But we are moving away from the point, the possibilities of interference is much greater in a motor vehicle. With that in mind take a look at the parts they put in for an aux connection and the size of the cabling, and the shielding. Ofcourse it varies greatly between manufacturers but not great.

The biggest difference, despite all that, is bit rate. Crappy 128 stands no chance to my ears regardless of any connections used.

Oh and there are of course other mp3 players available for which I am not familiar with the design brief.