Audio Install in So Cal?

According to http://www.laaudiofile.com/bta6100.html the West Covina Circuit City installed a Bazooka subwoofer in a Prius. I understand others have gone there for installations in theirs, so they should have experience.

 

I just had an XM Radio - the PriusXM kit installed by Al & Ed's on Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance. The installer, Vic, had worked on one Prius before mine. He was very careful and did a good job. The first time the antenna was not installed in the best place for the Prius, but I brought it back and they reinstalled. They are planning a similar installation in 2 Priuses this week-end, so you might consider going there.

My guess with the big places like Best Buy and Circuit City, unless you know the particular installer, it is somewhat of a gamble.

 

You're welcome. Let me know your experience. And I recommend you specify Vic to do any install. I think he is there only Wed through Sat.

 

Hope this helps otherSouthern California area Prius owners looking to hook up their ipod.

After looking through the conflicting and confusing maze of posts on priuschat about this topic, I decided to find a place that had experience installing an ipod2car (peripheral electronics) and hopefully with prius's. I didn't really want to mess with it myself.

My car: 2005 Prius Package 3
No cassette player with soundsystem.
My iPod: 4th Generation 60GB iPod Photo

Using Peripheral Electronics website's dealer locator function as a guide I called the places nearest to my work and found a reasonable hit after getting strikes at Fry's (Industry) and ProTint (Temple City):

AUTO SOUND & SECURITY CHINO
12171 CENTRAL AVE CHINO CA 91710
909-364-0494

Kevin had the ipod2car and both wiring harnesses that apparently my Prius factory system needed. He charged me a total of $182 including tax for the install which took about 45min. The dock connector cable comes out into the storage compartment just under the stereo control buttons. Worked great on the first go as other posters have noted. One scary moment was when I turned on the car to drive away a big warning sign came up that translated (via the manual) into "TAKE CARE TO DEALER IMMEDIATELY". After simply turning it off, removing the key and restarting, things were fine. Kevin theorized it was because he unplugged the Parking button during the install. Not sure myself.

So the only odd issues as other posters described: you can't forward tracks immediately, you have to first reverse but then it always works fine. the volume amplification is a bit low, not matching the other inputs (i.e. radio or cd). the ipod continues to charge even when the car is turned off, but i don't see that as anything terrible really. some things that occasionally work are that when you turn the car off, it often will pause the ipod which will eventually will turn the ipod off as well without me having to touch it -- and then when I turn the car on again, the ipod turns on and starts playing automatically. wish that happened all the time.

i drove up to and back from san francisco (11 hrs, 802 miles) over the weekend and used it every moment. loved it.

No conflict of interest or guarantee offered in the products/companies suggestions above.