toyota head unit help (car audio)

[taintedplay]

Hey guys, my friend has a toyota four runner. All stock audio. Her cd player is jacked up, every time she hits a bump it cuts out for a few seconds, and the outside antenna broke off so when she goes under a tree sometimes she hears static. Her birthdays in 2 weeks, and i though a new head unit would be a great gift, would a new headunit with built in cd player solve her whole cd problem? (id keep the stock speakers)

Also is there a way to fix the antenna thing (thats cheap?)

How hard would just replacing the head unit be considering i have no experience?

 

[Greg]

A new head unit would fix the skipping, unless it's just ridiculously rattly in her truck or something. They aren't hard to put in, I installed one a few years back when I knew nothing about car audio. I still don't know much, but I just installed another a few months ago with no problems.

If the actual antenna is broken I'm sure you could just get a cheap replacement somewhere and screw it in, but if it's the base of it or something that's broken it could be a little more expensive since you'd have to find and buy a Toyota specific part.

 

[carnageX]

Hey guys, my friend has a toyota four runner. All stock audio. Her cd player is jacked up, every time she hits a bump it cuts out for a few seconds, and the outside antenna broke off so when she goes under a tree sometimes she hears static. Her birthdays in 2 weeks, and i though a new head unit would be a great gift, would a new headunit with built in cd player solve her whole cd problem? (id keep the stock speakers)

Also is there a way to fix the antenna thing (thats cheap?)

How hard would just replacing the head unit be considering i have no experience?

Most you'll have to know how to do is match up colors with a wiring harness/solder the connections together. Very easy to do. All you'll have to do is get the make/model/year of the vehicle so you can get an install kit (bracket that will make the aftermarket deck fit into the previous space, and a wiring harness to connect the aftermarket radio's harness to the stock vehicle harness. If you have a local place you can go to for 'em, go there otherwise go onto somehwere like crutchfield.com and look up the parts.

As for the antenna...I know the place I work at has whole antenna kits for vehicles for around $10-15, which has the antenna, base, and antenna cable.

 

[Ronnie]

hardest part about ti all would be that EVERY head unit ive replaced has made me take off a good chunk of the dash out to do it lol

 

[Greg]

hardest part about ti all would be that EVERY head unit ive replaced has made me take off a good chunk of the dash out to do it lol

Yeah, that's true. I think some of the Toyotas are like this.

 

[Ronnie]

yea but after that you pretty much just cut the wires, twist the copper ends together, tape it up, and bam your done

 

[carnageX]

yea but after that you pretty much just cut the wires, twist the copper ends together, tape it up, and bam your done

Better to solder them together .

 

[Ronnie]

I never saw the use in soldering them together. If you twist them together and use some electrical tape...they aren't coming undone lol and its a lot faster just twisting and taping.

 

[Crysalis]

Buy a *good* crimp and some good female-female connectors and just crimp them all. Its not hard, and can really be just as good as soldering them in most cases. Also makes for a very clean install instead of taping everything.

 

[Ronnie]

^Yea I have seen it done like that with friends. Taping it doesn't really make any mess unless you go crazy it should look just as good as if you crimped. I just like to keep things simple, that and I am poor and lazy lol