Binary Fortress Software

Why don’t all cars have aux ports? Seriously, our car was made in 2004, I’m pretty sure that MP3 players were pretty standard back then. Why can’t I plug anything into the car stereo? Something needed to be done. But first a bit of back-story. Our car’s CD player is pretty much crap, and always has been. It’s just a plain factory deck and has always struggled with burned CDs. So, my wife and I had two choices. We could either buy a new aftermarket deck with an aux port, or we could buy and iPod and a 3rd party aux port kit. We chose option number two. We recently purchased an iPod, and both of our kids have their own small MP3 players, so we thought it would be best for everyone if we could just add an aux port to the factory deck. After much too Googling I came across a company called “PIE” who specializes in aftermarket aux port kits. Perfect! The kit for my car cost around $50 and simply plugs into the CD changer port on the back of the deck.

It is such a simple idea, and the instruction page had just 6 steps. What could possible go wrong! Here’s a quick picture of the Neon’s factory deck.

I’m not sure what that gap below the deck is for, I’m assuming it’s where the tape player would go if we had one. But, luckily for us, it’s almost the perfect size to fit this aux port adapter. Step one was to pry the bezel off from around all the dials and knobs. I thought this would be easy until I discovered 2 hidden screws behind the 2 vent covers at the top. Once I discovered this (and luckily didn’t break anything) it popped right off.

Once the bezel was off, the radio and the plugs below it came out very easily and I could see what I was up against. I discovered that I would need drill a big hole in the back of that little tray thing for the wires to feed through. Easy enough, and it worked like a champ.

Unfortunately the aux kit adapter (with it’s big cable on the back) was a bit too big for this little tray thing, and it sticks out a bit. Not a big deal though, it’s only out about 1cm.

Once everything was screwed back together and the wires were all connected it was time for a test drive.

Success! I’d like to thank my lovely hand model, Mrs. Wife. The sounds quality is as perfect as you can get from an iPod and I’ll never have to fiddle around with any of those FM transmitters. I also got a 2m cable that stretches to the back seat for the kids to use. This will work well for road trips, as they will be able to control their own music without bugging us every two minutes. Win-win for everyone. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install this kit. It only costs a little more than an FM transmitter but the price difference is well worth it. I can’t wait for our road trip to Ottawa next weekend to give the whole system a try.