Finally an aftermarket stereo setup for the hundy?

[nball]

After pouring serious cash into a local stereo shop we finally had a breakthrough. They took the radio "head unit" thing apart and isolated the circuits needed to keep the system happy. All HVAC stuff still works fine via the touch screen. The audio is controlled solely through a nice Kenwood head unit. The rest is Focal separates and a single high end amp (I forget the brand at the moment.)

A good sub comes next...

The nav no longer has voice over but I don't miss it. The steering wheel controls don't work either but I never used them. Everything else works as normal. The big deal for me is no more reliance on the factory crap. That buzzing finally goes away and the jokes about the tape slot too.

Pics coming when the sun comes up. Not much to show really, the head unit is where it should be.

I'll follow up by saying the shop wasn't super happy to do the work. They did a great job. It wasn't easy or sexy. They work on all kinds of exotic stuff so I figured it would be no big deal. I was wrong. Getting the LC to use a real system was far more effort than I had anticipated. Or them. Apparently this is a trend with new autos, yuck.

It sounds amazing without a sub. I'm thinking a sealed self powered 12" wedge behind the third row... MTX or similar.

 

[3D FJ]

Do you have pictures? I'm on the mud app so I can't see your sig...What year is yours?

 

[deanfun]

Information and pictures needed... considering there was a now-failed project to attempt to separate the HVAC/Nav/Stereo, it will be very interesting to see what the shop has come up with!

 

[RobRed]

To be clear the failed project was an economic one not a technical one.

The cruiserops project was designing a swappable wire harness to allow the easy removal of the MFD. All of the discrete wiring exists to do it. Toyota reduced the cost of the non-nav harness to about $1000 - so someone could now buy that and do a swap.

Doing what the OP has suggested is straight forward since removing the audio "headunit" is quite simple - a standard audio harness plugs into the unit. As OP points out you'll lose the NAV audio loopback provided by the factory amplifier.

GRunner put a single DIN in his cruiser 2 years ago.

 

[BamaHeel]

To be clear the failed project was an economic one not a technical one.

The cruiserops project was designing a swappable wire harness to allow the easy removal of the MFD. All of the discrete wiring exists to do it. Toyota reduced the cost of the non-nav harness to about $1000 - so someone could now buy that and do a swap.

That is true BUT I asked Onur about a year ago to price the wiring harness for me and he said it was no longer available.

Maybe I sent him the wrong part number I don't know.

 

[ILBEATU]

Pics please!!! Don't leave us hanging.