I bought an Excursion less than a month ago and I'm looking to replace the head unit and the DVD system and at least some of the speakers. I don't think I want to put an amp in. several years ago I know kicker made a woofer that didn't require an amp.

It has been so long since I have looked for stereos the last time I looked was before satellite navigation was integrated into stereo head units.

I have been researching and researching for probably 5 or 6 hours over the last few days and have figured out a few things like some of the double DIN units use phones for their satellite navigation. I may settle for that but mainly what I want is one of the big double din touch screen head units that I can hook up a rear view camera to and has Android auto and at least satellite navigation via phone if not built in it.

I have a friend that has a Jeep who put a Pioneer in and it didn't work and he put it Kenwood which he love's but reading the last few days I saw that a lot of the kenwoods displays are not bright enough. And also a lot of people said the Pioneers were junk.

Although I've learned a few things I'm way more confused about which model to buy now sms would really appreciate hearing from X and 250 owners about their head units what they like about it or what they have had their excursions and don't like about them or what their friends have had and what they didn't like about them to try to help me figure out what model stereo to get.

From what I can tell all of these big touch screen stereos will work with our after-market DVD flip down systems. I don't think a DVD player HU is necessary for what I want but I don't think that there are any big double DIN satellite navigation ready stereos that have rear view mirror camera hookups in them that do not have DVD players.

Finally I read that some of the kenwood DVD Hu won't work unless the emergency brake is engaged but there was a a circuit override a made for the emergency brake so people could watch DVDs with the emergency brake not depressed. Do all of the stereos have this circuit override override available? Or is this safety features just something kenwood had come up with?

Thanks for any suggestions or advice

 

Kenwood ddx9702s is the head unit my friend put in his Jeep that he liked. I just read on Amazon only one complaint about the brightness level for it. It must have been another Kenwood model that I read had several complaints. But the above Kenwood I also read in another review or someone accidentally pushed the AV button and it brought up a previously hidden menu with a bunch of different controls one was the brightness level setting. So that part I'm not concerned about anymore. But this radio does require iPhone 4 the satnav. Does this mean it uses up your minutes while it's navigating?

 

Yes it will use up your minutes/data while it's navigating

 

All or at least any legitimate mfg has to have a park brake DVD feature by law.

All the ones I have messed with are easy to defeat with how you wire the unit. Still against the law to watch a DVD up front while moving, but hey..... Bad boy bad watcha a gonna do

 

I really like the pioneer avic series. 4100/4200 if you want to save money and use phone gps, 7100/7200 for built in gps. 8100/8200 for capacitive touchscreen bling (it's expensive).

Regarding phone gps, the units support apple carmode and android auto. You do need to connect with a cable but otherwise it's all there on the headunit, just driven by your phone. IMO apple's carmode isn't very good but android auto is excellent. If I were to do it again I'd get a 4100/4200 and use android auto navigation. As it is right now I use that more often than the built in navigation anyway which isn't because the built in nav isn't good, it's excellent, but google navigation is just *that* good.

 

Look on Amazon for Pumpkin Android Radio. There are a bunch of guys on here that have them and I plan to get one in the future.

They have all the features, including Nav that you want. I have a pioneer right now that I like but it's another $300 to add the GPS/Nav...

 

You're post here (number 4 in this thread from yesterday) was the last I had read then just now I checked and saw I had 23 new ones.

An hour ago I ordered a kenwood dnx893s from Amazon. I will go back and read all the above posts now to see if I need to cancel it

 

I Hadn't heard of pumpkin. It looks like on their site they have built in satnav for a good of the dnx893s I just bought.

Now my question is what are the pros and cons of buying a pumpkin vs the dnx893s.

 

So I put in a pioneer unit in my wife Yukon xl. I love the thing. One thing about the parking brake deal is now they run a frequency overlay that isn't as easy to bypass. I had to order a bypass kit that will properly send that signal back to the unit to bypass it. Just an FYI.

 

[QUOTE=seijirou;16423186]I really like the pioneer avic series. 4100/4200 if you want to save money and use phone gps, 7100/7200 for built in gps. 8100/8200 for capacitive touchscreen bling (it's expensive).

Regarding phone gps, the units support apple carmode and android auto. You do need to connect with a cable but otherwise it's all there on the headunit, just driven by your phone. IMO apple's carmode isn't very good but android auto is excellent. If I were to do it again I'd get a 4100/4200 and use android auto navigation. As it is right now I use that more often than the built in navigation anyway which isn't because the built in nav isn't good, it's excellent, but google navigation is just *that* good.[

I bought a kenwood today before seeing all these replies. Money is not a very big issue of course if I could buy the same thing or close to the same thing for a half or a third but I just paid today which was over $1,000 I would do it. And I ordered on Amazon so I can always cancel it or send it back anyway. Butt I want built in Sat Nav I hate the idea of eating up my data because when I'm using a common I like to keep it on the whole road trip.

 

Thanks for the response that is important to me

 

The bypass kits are radio model specific aren't they ? I just got a Kenwood dnx893s today. I haven't found a relay bypass for it yet

 

In that case I would recommend the pionner avic 7100/7200 or 8100/8200 (The differences between the 100's and 200's is almost non existent I think the 200 is just their 3rd year after being released). The 8100 will run you about $1000 and I think the 7100 is like $700.

The whole parking brake thing is stupid easy to bypass on the Pioneers too. You don't even need to worry about any special bypass kit or funky wiring. There's a hidden diagnostic button on the "audio off" screen that turns off the parking brake check with a long press. Basically all the junk that gets locked out while in motion is no longer locked, which is a lot more than just DVD playback.

 

So how exactly do you do this?

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQDe0osxUA