I have a 2012 F350 Lariat with Premium sound/SYNC, no nav. I'm thinking of going with the Kenwood DNX9990HD unit, mainly for the Garmin maps.

I know I can go with the iDatalink Maestro unit to gain full SYNC integration but I lose the ability to have sat radio.

If I go this route, does the factory mic, stay in use? What about the USB and 3.5mm jack that's currently in the dash? As the 9990 has 2 USB connections, would that then give me 3?

I really don't care about keeping SYNC but looking at some of the other options, i.e. PAC, etc. it looks like some wiring modifications need to be done to the wiring harness in the steering column. Not a big fan of that if I ever want to return to stock and sell, etc... Also would probably require changing out the mic, and probably a few other things

I know I can still use a Sat radio with the aux inputs, anybody run a cross a good clean option for doing this?

 

Well FWIW, I'm trying to proceed with losing the SYNC completely. I am sure I would have had it all done by now if Amazon and E-Bay vendors hadn't conspired to make this much more frustrating than necessary.

I'm going with the Kenwood DNX9990. Bought on E-Bay along with the Metra wiring harness. After some confusion about the wrong tracking code, it showed up.

I bought a Sirius external tuner, Axxess steering wheel controls, and Metra mounting kit from Amazon. Suddenly Amazon can't find my house. About a week after expected delivery (per their report) I get a notice that the shipments (3 separate ones) were undeliverable and had been returned. Great, start over now.

Rebought everything on E-Bay, restart the shipping clock. By now I've had the dash apart a couple of times with the expectation that things would show up when they say.

Still waiting on one last part, the steering wheel controls although if it's not here by this weekend, will install without it and add if it ever does show up. (It's amazing how easy this dash comes apart). They said it was shipped on the 5th, but then USPS didn't acknowledge picking it up till Monday the 10th. Now in LaLa land between LA and Seattle with no updates for a few days. Damn it I want to play with my new toy!

 

Hi,

Sorry you ended up choosing another solution, but wanted to answer your questions anyhow. If you install the Maestro RR solution with Kenwood 9990, the phone and BT streaming would continue to be done through SYNC and all the voice features continue to work. In addition, the factory plate with USB and 3.5mm continue to work and they are a dedicated source called OEM Media Player. Then, you would also get the two additional USB ports of the 9990 for a total of 3.

In addition, Maestro is the only interface out there that lets you double up on the functions of your SW buttons and assign them visually on our website. It's pretty neat. You can test drive programming on our website: iDatalink - Maestro - Demo RR - Main

Hope you enjoy your new gear and sorry we made you choose between us and a satellite radio. We are hoping we will resolve that issue for 2013 in the new DNX models.

Best,

 

Thanks for the info. I went back and forth and did finally decide on the Sat radio. The only times I ever used SYNC was to switch to BT Audio to listen to MP3 files from my phone (my voicemail system e-mails them to me). Other than it was an extra button that was hit by mistake a few times.

I finally got the last component so will get installed today. I'm routing the Kenwood's USB cords over to the glove box, the first one, for iPod (not sure what the difference really is) will be connected to the factory plate cable from the existing SYNC. The other will be left in the glove box with a thumb drive, may try a small passive USB hub if I feel I need more ports (don't know why I would other than just because I can).

I'm not going to replace the 3.5mm connection, don't have anything that would use it so may modify the plate and mount a small potentiometer for a variable speed SEIC. Again just because I can :-)

 

which metra kit did you use? how does it look as a finished product?