iPod and 05 Prius??

Hi everyone, I have been in and out of this website for help on things here and there. I own a black 05 Prius. I'm from the Boston area and I met a few people at a gathering in Framingham/Natick in the Jordan's furniture parking lot, but the only ones I remember the names of are Aerometer and Bob and Gilles Labelle.
You may remember my Prius because it had leather seats and special chrome rims... let me know if anyone reading this remembers me...

Anyway, I just bought a new video iPod for the main reason of listening to music in my car. Obviously I don't want to sacrifice sound quality in anyway (ie cassette player [they make hiss sounds] and wireless FM transmitters [static noise]).

I bought a Wire-Tunes at Circuit City for 150, but when I got home, I looked in this forum and people said it didn't work with their Priuses. Then I called up the company that makes wire-tunes (Metra Electronics) and their tech support said that they don't make a wire-tunes that works with the Prius. No matter how new or old your Prius or iPod is (they seriously should take the sticker off the box that says it works with "2004-UP PRIUS")

So now I am stuck, because this product was cheap, 150, anything above that, like that one people are talking about that goes for over 300 dollars-- http://www.vaistech.com/sli.html
is just too much money for me. I'm a student, so dishing out that much isn't easy.

Controlling the iPod from the steering wheel and/or touch screen/dash board controls isn't necessary (it's cool but if it means a lot of extra cash, then no thanks).

I want to just be able to hear good quality music from my iPod coming out of my car speakers.

The guy at Circuit City said that he has a product that is used for XM radios that is called an "FM modulator" if I heard correctly (made either by delphi or peripheral [or maybe something else completely different]. He said that it plugs into the headphone jack of the iPod and then into the dash and then plugs into or clips onto the antenna giving it "dibs" on any station it wants to transmit from (and better sound quality than those wireless radio transmitters). He says the sound will sound like any radio station that you would listen to without static because it is not competing for a signal, it just gets the signal before anything else because it goes right into the antenna. He says this is 50 dollars.

I have a feeling this topic has been beaten to death in this forum (connecting iPod to Prius), but I was having trouble finding the information I wanted. So I decided to post.

So what does anyone recommend. This "FM modulator"? Does anyone know if the quality will really be good? Or does anyone know of an alternative product that wont cost a TON. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

 

Hey, thanks for the info.

What I'm thinking though is if I buy with a group or not, I am going to have to install it. Now I don't know how to take out the Prius radio equipment. Do you think I should do it myself or take it somewhere? Is it easy enough? What did you do?

 

In case anyone is still reading this post...

I just came back form Circuit City. I purchased the wired FM modulator for 21 dollars. I had to tell the kid working the garage how to use the prius. I waited for about 10 minutes, and the manager came to speak to me. He said he can't touch the car because he doesn't want to mess anything up. He says that the car is like nothing he has ever seen and if he was to work on it he would basically be experimenting because he looked up manuals and there is no information on the prius. So I left empty handed... listening to the boring radio.

I was reffered to go to this car performance place and he told me he could put in the ICE-Link for the ipod and the product itself would cost 300 dollars, the holder, 100, and the labor about 200. I'm definetly not paying 600 bucks to LISTEN to my ipod in my car. The ipod itself is 299!

I'm running out of ideas here. The second guy said that an FM modulator he wouldn't even install because it sounds so crappy anyway.

I do not know what I can do. I am open to ANY suggestions that don't cost too much. I'm not cheap, it's just that after a certain point, listening in the car just isn't worth it.

 

Well I have the regular radio that came with the 05 prus, package 6... its got a 6 cd changer. That's all I really know...

I just tried a wireless FM transmitter from the apple store by Griffin and it was horrible.

They had no cassette adapters so I'm waiting for those to try one out.

I'll take a look at the ilounge site and see what I can find.


Hey BobR, btw, are you from New England?

 

Ultimately, keeping the 6 disc CD changer would be ideal. But If it must go, then so be it. I bought a cassette adapter already and it sounded like junk. I returned it.
A woman at an apple store told me JBL should have released some sort of ipod to car integration product in october... I can't find anything on this, and since JBL make the speakers or stereo system of the prius (I think?), then this may be the solution. I'm going to be on the lookout for this. Though if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know.

Thanks for your help Bob