Hello,

Although I've been reading a while this is the first thread I started. Hopefully someone could give me some good advice for an after market GPS Navigation system for a 2004 Limited EX. I've seen magellan and others but nothing that looks original. Any ideas would be most appreciated.

 

I just bought Microsoft Streets and Trips with GPS locator from Best Buy. $99 less $10 mail in rebate. It works with my laptop, so it is portable, and gives you a lot of additional info, ie. banks, restaurants, campgrounds etc.

 

I got a Garmin 2610 Street Pilot. It sits on a bean bag mount that stays put. It plugs into the cig lighter. It offers voice commands with turn by turn instructions. I bought mine at gpsexplorerdotcom.

It is portable so when yiou arrive at your destination, you can jsut put it in the console and move it from car to car. No mods to your truck at all.

 

If you want something that looks factory you will spend a lot more $$$ than what a Magellan or Garmin cost. I'm looking at adding a navigation system to my 04' Limited Ex as well and have pretty much decided on going with an Eclipse unit. The Eclipse 5435 is out now & from everything I have heard & read it is an incredible unit, it has navigation, DVD & Sirius Radio ready. It is a double din unit so it replaces the factory radio & looks like it came from the factory. I think I'm going to hold out for the Eclipse 5495 unit which is suppose to be released this month. It has all the same functions as the 5435 but it also has a hard drive, so the navigation information is saved on the hard drive rather than being accesed from a DVD, which means it should be able to retrieve information much faster. The 5495 will also allow you to rip music cd's to the hard drive so you load the cd once, rip it to the hard drive and you never have to load that cd again - from what I have read you will be able to rip about 250 cd's, so it will be like jukebox in your truck. But like I said they ain't cheap, retail is about $2,300.

 

Thank you to everyone for the leads and input.

 

Personally if you want a clean and factory look then go with a Eclipse AVN5435 this is what i have on order for my 05 X it is a perfect fit and looks totaly stock, as its got all the toys sirius sat radio ready and touch screen, mp3, and rear cam ready. I paid $3000 canadian for mine see what crutchfield will sell it for. I have posted a picture of what it would look like in your dash via adobe photoshop. This should give you an idea. Plus a larger shot of the head unit.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="250" width="497"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="260">

• CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 and DVD-Video
• 6.5 TFT Display with touch control
• High-performance DSP:
  • 5-mode soundfield control
  • 9-band EQ
  • Listening position selector
• 5V preamp output with low 55
  impedance
• FM/AM tuner

</td> <td></td> <td bgcolor="#666666"></td> <td></td> <td valign="top" width="260">

• HD radio-ready
• SIRIUS Satellite Radio-ready
• CD Changer-ready (2 units)
• Rear view camera-ready
• Video output for rear monitor
• E-LAN data link system
• ESN security

</td></tr></tbody> </table> https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...oid=74095&.jpg

 

http://www.eclipse-web.com/avn/images/avn5435.jpg

picture of headunit

http://www.eclipse-web.com/avn/avn5435.html#

 

Just make sure that you don't have the factory DVD system installed. If you do, you will have to remove it, along with the factory HU. Otherwise, the factory DVD system is incompatible with anything but the factory HU. This is information gleaned from my local installer. In order to do this right (for my 05' ltd), I would have to remove the factory HU and DVD system, and install the eclipse NAV, cd-changer, and a drop down dvd system. I'm also going with the rear view camera as well. The cost to do the do with be around $4200. I'm gonna have to save up. I could be getting hoodwinked though. Anyone know if the DVD system compatibility issue is true?

 

Wow...the eclipe unit is incredible! Now..the question is....what happens to my DVD player? Did I understand it correctly...they are not compatible? Couldn't they operate as stand alone units?

 

will you loose the use of the head phone jacks in the back ?

 

I was told that I would have to remove all of my factory stereo/av stuff, and replace it with aftermarket stuff. I guess the DVD doesn't work without the factory H/U. I would love it if someone with more experience with this than me could help.

 

I was told that the factory DVD player would still be functional but the audio would only be heard through the wireless headphones.

 

Shoot, that works for me! I don't need to hear "Finding Nemo" for four hours straight. Can you confirm that?

 

You both are true, the factory unit will only work with the headphones, IF the installer hooked up the power from the output on the Factory HU, However if he is really good he CAN make it work, I did it with my explorer. I will tell you how when I get my new headunit, but I have not spent the time to test the wires on my X.

Simply put you can make your factory DVD system work with any aftermarket system that has an optional RCA Intput for the Audio or you can do what I did in my fathers Explorer which was a Line Level Convertor to a FM modulator as I gave him a Blaupunkt RNS 149 Travel Pilot Nav system that had RCAs out but not in, so when my Dad wante d to use the DVD/Monitor, he tuned into 88.9 or something and then he had to manually press the pwr button on the factory DVD to turn on the system to watch a movie, but the power feed wires are located at the back of the factory head unit, along with the audio out lines.

You have to know what you are doing to make it work but it is a very simple task for anyone with a fluke meter and a little know how of reading a meter and a little bit of time.

I will post the info latter on I maybe hooking up another RNS149 in my X until my Eclipse unit is here.

 

Are you saying that I have to map out every wire from the HU harness side of things (Chop the wires before the harness connection, but before after they exit the HU), and then splice them to the new HU (for the DVD connection), so that it all works? Please elaborate. I want to be able to hard wire my factory DVD to the new NAV unit.