Anyone have any experience or knowledge of how these things go in? I finally bought a bluetooth enabled phone and would like to have connectivity in my expy. I can't even find the part number now... I have it in an accessories catalog I have at home.
My question is how difficult are these to install in the car? I installed the OEM Sirius satellite wiring kit so I'm pretty handy, just wondering about this piece.
Thanks
Rick

 

What year Expedition?

I'm just wondering since my experience with handsfree kits is with a '94 Explorer, a '97 Mountaineer, an '02 Taurus, and an '05 F-150. The Taurus was like the Mounty and Explorer, nothing fancy about the wiring, but I had to use the external speaker included with handsfree kit to hear conversations from the handsfree without purchasing an expensive interface to hook up my stock radio to the speakers. The '05 F-150 had an inexpensive harness that I hooked up into the CANBus interface to get the handfree to play through the radio. All 4 vehicles had a wire that I could connect to my handsfree so that the handsfree will mute the radio. The hardest part of these installs was where to hide the module and the speaker (if necessary).

As for a bluetooth handfree kit, I bought the Motorola IHF1000 since the chrome buttons match the chrome AC vent rings in my F-150. The less expensive IHF850 lacks the voice commands and voice caller ID that the IHF1000 has. The "Ford Brand" handsfree looks like it's made by Nokia and is really expensive, and an actual Nokia unit is in my sister's Taurus. I haven't had problems getting a Nokia to work with a Motorola, and a Motorola to work with a Nokia since I have a Motorola V551 and my sister has a Nokia 6255i. Parrot Communications makes a unit that's about the same price as the Mot IHF1000 that has an LCD display, but I don't know more than what the brochure states. I believe that Sony/Ericcson makes a handsfree kit as well, but I have no experience with it.

The only problem with bluetooth handsfree vs. a traditional wire or cradle handsfree is that the battery runs down a lot faster. I hope that this is a good start on where to look.

 

jljue, thanks for the lengthy reply and details... my Expy is an '05. I just got the new Nextel i870 this week as Nextel is finally trying to get with the times! I have looked around a little, and I did stumble upon the Parrot. They've got one that has caller ID display, etc that looks pretty cool. I was just trying to weigh all of my options. I'll post more details as I find out.
Rick

 

Well, I found the ford bluetooth part number... it's called Mobile-Ease PN 19G399 in the Ford expy accessories catalog. Probably really pricey, I'm prob gonna go with the motorola or the Parrot unit... they both look way cooler.

 

Yeah, I'm not that familiar with the new Expedition, but I'm sure that with factory DVD navigation availability and such on all of the new vehicles, there is probably a harness that you can buy like my F-150 that makes installation a snap. I got lucky on the older vehicles since they actually had the wiring color codes written on the wiring harness or on the radio themselves. I didn't have the shop manual of the F-150 when I installed the handsfree and aux input interface, so I had to depend on this website and the color code tag on the handsfree prep harness. I had to have the harness anyway so that I could connect the phone to the radio since I don't have the DVD setup in my SCrew.

I don't think that you can really go wrong with either the Motorola or the Parrot. I can't remember if it has voice commands or not, but at least you don't have to remember commands or keep the manual in the truck at all times to navigate through the menus. Despite trying to memorize commands, I love the Motorola kit anyway.