Daily Driver Part 1: Lacking Sound and Technology
For the time being the Ford Excursion is my daily driver. This gives me time to work out any issues with it before loading up the family and pulling a 12k lb trailer all around. Hopefully I can find any problems with it and take care of them before risking stranding my entire family on the side of the road in the middle of the Utah desert. I'll tell you what I learn in multiple blog posts, while driving it 5 days a week nearly 80 miles round trip from Ogden into Salt Lake City.
For anyone who has driven a modern vehicle, stepping back into time 10 years might cause some techno-shock! Lack of technology is a problem for somebody like me who loves gadgets! We're talking a 10 year old sound system that was made before bluetooth was invented! This just isn't going to work for me and I knew this going into the purchase. I had planned a massive sound and tech upgrade from the beginning.
Apple Car Play (or Android Auto) is Priority #1
Ever since the Pioneer NEX4000 launched I've been interested in installing it into one of my vehicles. It's a masterpiece with the center of attention being one of the first head units to support Apple Car Play. It also plays DVD's on it's 7" touch screen LCD with a respectable 800x400 resolution. The SD card can be loaded up with movies and music and it's even capable of playing back super high resolution FLAC files for the ultimate in sound quality. AWESOME! It has lots of inputs and outputs for multiple amplifiers, USB, even an HDMI input and output. I can't think of a single thing I would want that is not available in this unit.
I'll admit I'm a bit of a sound quality snob, for example I refuse to pay for XM radio because the sound quality is so bad I might as well be listening to fingernails on a chalk board...I can't stand the compression I hear in the music at it's terrible 64kbs bitrate. Internet streaming music is also hit and miss, sometimes it sounds ok, other times I can't stand to listen to it as it sounds flat lacking bass and treble. Most high quality mp3 or mp4 from Amazon or iTunes is acceptable. My favorite sources of music is either HD Radio or FLAC or old school CD's. Luckily the NEX4100 handles these formats and any other format you wish...minus bluray of course.
I installed it myself with the help of some self-install kits for the wiring harness and mounting brackets and even an adapter to make the steering wheel controls work. All went great and there was only some minor trimming of the rear of the dash opening to allow it to fit properly. It has a lip on the top and bottom about 1/4" tall that you'll need to trim off. I used a drill bit in a dremel tool and made pretty quick work of it.
I want to say something about internet vs local dealer here before you follow my links to Amazon to order all your stuff. I found amps and speakers on sale on the internet and purchased most of my system on Amazon and the Infinity outlet. Would I do it again? Hell no! I was sent a wrong amp and had to deal with that which was annoying. But the biggest reason I'd buy local is once I went to The hi-fi Shop in Ogden to buy an amp and sub as well as miscellaneous stuff I was missing I received such great service and advice that I 100% regretted my decision to buy online. Also, the prices at my local shop were just as competitive as most of the online "deals" I had found, so I wasn't saving much money by shopping online and I was missing out on tons of great support and advice. Trust me, the few bucks you are saving online doesn't even come close to the advice and service a local shop will provide to you. Do yourself a favor and give a local sound shop a chance before you buy online.
List of Things to make the install easy!
For anyone who has driven a modern vehicle, stepping back into time 10 years might cause some techno-shock! Lack of technology is a problem for somebody like me who loves gadgets! We're talking a 10 year old sound system that was made before bluetooth was invented! This just isn't going to work for me and I knew this going into the purchase. I had planned a massive sound and tech upgrade from the beginning.
Apple Car Play (or Android Auto) is Priority #1
Ever since the Pioneer NEX4000 launched I've been interested in installing it into one of my vehicles. It's a masterpiece with the center of attention being one of the first head units to support Apple Car Play. It also plays DVD's on it's 7" touch screen LCD with a respectable 800x400 resolution. The SD card can be loaded up with movies and music and it's even capable of playing back super high resolution FLAC files for the ultimate in sound quality. AWESOME! It has lots of inputs and outputs for multiple amplifiers, USB, even an HDMI input and output. I can't think of a single thing I would want that is not available in this unit.
I'll admit I'm a bit of a sound quality snob, for example I refuse to pay for XM radio because the sound quality is so bad I might as well be listening to fingernails on a chalk board...I can't stand the compression I hear in the music at it's terrible 64kbs bitrate. Internet streaming music is also hit and miss, sometimes it sounds ok, other times I can't stand to listen to it as it sounds flat lacking bass and treble. Most high quality mp3 or mp4 from Amazon or iTunes is acceptable. My favorite sources of music is either HD Radio or FLAC or old school CD's. Luckily the NEX4100 handles these formats and any other format you wish...minus bluray of course.
I installed it myself with the help of some self-install kits for the wiring harness and mounting brackets and even an adapter to make the steering wheel controls work. All went great and there was only some minor trimming of the rear of the dash opening to allow it to fit properly. It has a lip on the top and bottom about 1/4" tall that you'll need to trim off. I used a drill bit in a dremel tool and made pretty quick work of it.
I want to say something about internet vs local dealer here before you follow my links to Amazon to order all your stuff. I found amps and speakers on sale on the internet and purchased most of my system on Amazon and the Infinity outlet. Would I do it again? Hell no! I was sent a wrong amp and had to deal with that which was annoying. But the biggest reason I'd buy local is once I went to The hi-fi Shop in Ogden to buy an amp and sub as well as miscellaneous stuff I was missing I received such great service and advice that I 100% regretted my decision to buy online. Also, the prices at my local shop were just as competitive as most of the online "deals" I had found, so I wasn't saving much money by shopping online and I was missing out on tons of great support and advice. Trust me, the few bucks you are saving online doesn't even come close to the advice and service a local shop will provide to you. Do yourself a favor and give a local sound shop a chance before you buy online.
List of Things to make the install easy!
- Metra 70-1771 Radio Wiring Harness
- MicroBypass Parking Brake Switch (allows video while driving)
- Metra 95-5817 Double DIN Dash Kit
- Metra Axxess ASWC-1 Universal Steering Wheel Control Interface
- Metra 72-5600 Speaker adapter (only if you intend to use stock wiring for speakers) **
- OTC 7575 Radio Removal Tool for Ford
All 6 speakers in the Excursion are 5x7 and they are cheap POS's. Remove them and throw them in the garbage, or better yet recycle them! Your ears will thank you.
WARNING!!! Ford uses a 2ohm wiring configuration for the 4 speakers in the 2nd and 3rd rows. DO NOT connect your rear speaker wires to your brand new head unit or you risk frying it!!! I'm so lucky I stumbled across a couple great forum posts about this or else I might have fried my NEX4100. For a short time I only had the front speakers connected using factory wiring until I had a nice long weekend to replace all 6 speakers and run new wiring and amplifiers.
As far as I know you cannot use the factory wiring for the 4 rear speakers as they drop 4ohm speakers to 2ohms and there is also some sort of amp/fader mechanism in the mix that isn't worth dealing with. Plan on running new wires to the rear, and since you're running wire you might as well install amps!
Wow, this ended up being a long post for just the head unit. I'll pickup where I left off next time to talk about amps, wiring, speakers, and gutting your excursion to get it all done.
I leave you with a picture of my DIY install:
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