Bad CD player 2004 Prius

[Ringel 05]

Looking for a replacement for my wife's broken CD player in her 2004 Prius. She want's to replace it with a CD/MP3 player that is compatible with the Prius system. I'm not interested in paying $500 + for the Toyota OEM replacement. I think I read some where the radio and CD players are separate units and can be replaced individually. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

[Rybold]

What's a "CD player?"

Oh wait. I just noticed this post is from 2004. Did they have iPod plugs back then?

To answer your question seriously, go to Best Buy or any other car stereo installation shop. The CD players come with radios built in and iPod cables built in. It's all one unit, and it's small and compact. It is much better quality than the standard radio that comes in the Prius. If you have the optional stereo on the Prius, it's probably a really good one. Be sure to ask around. Al & Eds Autosound (a national chain) has the high end stuff.

I have had an aftermarket stereo in every vehicle that I have ever owned, so I know about the subject if you have any questions. My best advice for you right now is to go to Best Buy and talk to one of the associates and get an idea of what is out there. If you want higher quality, then after first talking to the guys at Best Buy, then go to Al & Eds and talk to the employees.

[hyo silver]

The stock head unit really isn't very good. For less than $500, I'm sure you could not only restore the functionality, but gain a big improvement in sound quality. There are quite a few threads here on car stereo equipment - have a look around and see what you can learn.

[Ringel 05]

First off thanks for the info. No the post is about a 2004 not from 2004. My local Best Buy told me none of the replacement units they had would interface with the touch screen (which is a requirement dictated by my wife - her car). Looking to go on the cheap, not interested in "high end". One other challenge: We know absolutely nothing about MP3s (is that the same as an iPod?), her brother said she should have one in her car. Thanks again

Originally Posted by Rybold

What's a "CD player?"

Oh wait. I just noticed this post is from 2004. Did they have iPod plugs back then?

To answer your question seriously, go to Best Buy or any other car stereo installation shop. The CD players come with radios built in and iPod cables built in. It's all one unit, and it's small and compact. It is much better quality than the standard radio that comes in the Prius. If you have the optional stereo on the Prius, it's probably a really good one. Be sure to ask around. Al & Eds Autosound (a national chain) has the high end stuff.

I have had an aftermarket stereo in every vehicle that I have ever owned, so I know about the subject if you have any questions. My best advice for you right now is to go to Best Buy and talk to one of the associates and get an idea of what is out there. If you want higher quality, then after first talking to the guys at Best Buy, then go to Al & Eds and talk to the employees.

[Ringel 05]

Thanks but unfortunately I'm still trying to figure out how to use this forum. With the extremely limited time I have I have not been able to locate most of those threads and when I do they don't answer my question in a way I can understand - to much tech talk. (My understanding of audio equipment is limited at best and my knowledge of MP3 is non existent). Simply what I am looking for is a unit I can put back in the slot the current unit occupies and make it interface exactly the way the old unit does, i.e. through the touch screen, steering wheel and dash controls.

Originally Posted by hyo silver

The stock head unit really isn't very good. For less than $500, I'm sure you could not only restore the functionality, but gain a big improvement in sound quality. There are quite a few threads here on car stereo equipment - have a look around and see what you can learn.

[hyo silver]

I think there is an add-on unit that will retain the use of the steering wheel controls, but I doubt you'll find anything that goes in the same spot, or anything that still uses the touch screen. An elegant alternative is to use the space below the stereo behind the little plastic door. Control options include a remote control and the iPod wheel. I'll see if I can find the thread describing it.

edit: Here, see what you think about this.

[john5396]

Ringel,

Since you are looking for an exact replacement of the original radio, I suggest you call up you local auto salvage company (Junk Yard) and look into a slavaged unit from another 2004.

[Oneaxepony]

Prius salvage radios are readily available on eBay. Price will be less than $100 for your model (assuming non-JBL).

[Ringel 05]

I finally was able to talk to an install person at best buy and got tons of info. He told me he has done after market installs like my wife wants but they (Best Buy) don't carry the required bracket and wiring harness. If I brought them in they would do the install. Crutchfield has the bracket but is sold out on the wiring harnesses. Tried a couple of other sites with similar results.
Thanks for the help and advice.

[quote=hyo silver;917139]I think there is an add-on unit that will retain the use of the steering wheel controls, but I doubt you'll find anything that goes in the same spot, or anything that still uses the touch screen. An elegant alternative is to use the space below the stereo behind the little plastic door. Control options include a remote control and the iPod wheel. I'll see if I can find the thread describing it.

[cwerdna]

Originally Posted by Ringel 05

One other challenge: We know absolutely nothing about MP3s (is that the same as an iPod?), her brother said she should have one in her car. Thanks again

MP3 refers to an extremely popular lossy (as in, there's sound quality loss) sound compression format. In the earlier days w/limited and expensive storage, many would encode at 128 kbps (kilobits/sec) yielding about ~10:1 compression compared to a non-lossy format (like .WAV) at 44.1 kbps, stereo, which is the sampling rate of CDs. With 128 kbps compression, 1 minute is ~1 megabyte vs. ~10 megabytes for uncompressed CD quality sound.

Nowawdays, many think 128 kbps sucks (or the format itself sucks) and most would use a higher bitrate.

iPods refers to a line of portable music players from Apple which can play MP3 files along w/other formats. They are by far dominant in this space w/70+% marketshare. A distant 2nd is Sandisk and then the Zune from Microsoft is #3 (with share in the 2-4% range) (FWIW, Apple sold 10.2 million iPods last quarter per Apple Reports Third Quarter Results).

The table at Apple - iPod classic - Technical Specifications (for example) lists the other format each of them supports, if you care.

I don't know what "her brother said she should have one in her car" means.

Is she saying that she should own one, that the car come with one or that the car should come with inputs for one? Priuses don't come with them and 04 Priuses have no aux input for an iPod or other portable music player. BUT, you probably have a tape deck and I would highly recommend a cassette adapter to use w/a portable music player over an FM transmitter. It's way cheaper and the sound quality is better.

If the stereo works but just the CD playback portion is broken, I wouldn't even bother getting it replaced. Ditch CDs entirely and buy a good portable music player, such as an iPod. I almost never use the CD players in my cars. I almost exclusively use my iPod and iPhone 3G (to stream music from Pandora) for listening. Screwing around w/CDs in the car and burning custom mix CDs of songs I like is a total waste off time. I'd never go back to that.

Step into your favorite Apple store if you want to take a look at iPods and get a demo.

If you find iPods to be too pricey, consider buying online from somewhere out of state to avoid sales tax or buy refurbs (http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...od?mco=MTE3Njc or lower left of store.apple.com). The inventory of refurbs comes and goes. I do not recommend an iPod Shuffle as one's only iPod as it has no display. It's ok a a secondary player, IMHO.