When I bought the car used, it came with an aftermarket radio/tape deck, so when my relatives gave me their ‘old’ Honda Pilot CD player I was psyched! (They upgraded their factory deck with a dvd navigation system).
Please note that I had NO prior deck installation experience, only the stubborn will to have a cd player that was free. No hot import nights winner here, as you’ll notice the huge gaps all around the deck (I avoided having to learn/screw-up fabrication).
It’s been a year and I’ve been happy with having a CD player. If I had the chance to do it over, I wouldn’t. I spent more money than I’d like ‘making it work’. A cheap low end deck with a professional shop install probably wouldn’t have cost that much extra on top of what I spent (see below).
My favorite part is the gigantic knob (uh…) used to turn it on and off as well as control the volume. At least I haven’t seen many of those on cheap aftermarket decks.
Pics:
View from around the driver’s seat:
Close up view, with revealing cuts into the bezel:
Giant knob makes it easy to turn on/off and to adjust volume.
Very simple features (a plus for me)
There’s now two lighted clocks inside the car.
I have the ‘Look Mommy, I did it all by myself!’ feeling of pride
Cons:
No mp3 support.
It’s only a single cd player.
I can tell it’s a great sounding deck, because at certain frequency ranges it brings out how crappy my stock speakers are.
No more cigarette lighter (it had to be removed to make room for the radio and wiring harness).
Cost and install are more hassle than it’s worth.
The ghetto install look isn’t too hard to spot
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Cost to install:
Free - Honda Pilot Radio
$45 - For 2 wire adapters used to make a wiring harness (I paid retail from Best Buy cuz I was too in a hurry to get it done).
$5 - Pack of butt adapters. I tried using these to avoid soldering - (I ended up learning how to solder anyways when I saw how crappy the butt adapters were)
$25 - Extra plastic Center console panel from ebay, in case I had to do cutting (I didn’t have to, I could’ve just used the old one)
$20 - Extra radio bezel thingie, in case I had to do cutting (I did have to cut this using my dremel)
Free - Tools that I already had or borrowed (screwdrivers, dremel, solder gun thing, solder).
That’s $95, I’ve seen CD/Mp3 decks for this much with free installs…oh wells.
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Install Notes:
The stock Honda Pilot radio is not an exact double din size. It’s slightly shorter height wise, and horizontally it’s slightly wider than a standard size. It also has a non-standard way of attaching to the Pilot’s console (it’s got these ‘lips’ that hook behind some panels in the Pilot console). I removed the integra radio bezel, marked off approximately how much would be needed cut and used a dremel to take away the excess. I found out how unsteady my hand was.
It took several tries to put the radio in with the new wiring harness. There are these metal brackets in there that the wiring harness starts to compete with, so I had to wiggle the harness around to get it to fit. The cigarette lighter had to be removed too, because somehow it also interfered with the fit (I don’t recall why at the moment).
It was an interesting experience to go through, but having done it once I’ll leave it to the pros next time, with a radio that won’t require too much customization.
