my OH has a birthday coming up. She listens to a lot of music from her Samsung Galaxy, but in her car has a CD / radio, with nowhere to plug in anything else that I can see. As she travels for work, I’m sure she’d like plug her mp3 into her car stereo. Most of the music is on a microSD card

Are there any adpators for doing this or is it a case of buying a whole new unit?

Thanks in advance.

Depends on your budget but I like the Parrot Mki9000. It’s a handsfree kit that also adds bluetooth music (can plug in if you really want) without removing your existing head unit. For some cars I think the steering wheel controls can even be integrated.

Have you removed the head unit to look at the back? If the system let’s you connect a multichanger cd or an aux in setting then there’ll be inputs in the rear of the unit. Then it’s just a case of getting a long enough audio lead to plug onto the phone.

TBH, phaffing around with adaptors and plug-ins never really gives a satisfactory result. Far better to invest a bit extra on a quality head-unit that allows more versatility. I’ve got a lovely Kenwood DAB unit in my Octavia, I can listen to 6Music on the move, it can control a disc-changer if need be, it has a CD slot, and it has a USB slot, so I can plug my iPod or my iPhone in, it’ll take any other phone with a USB cable, and she can shove a load of music onto a USB thumb drive, which is better than using SD cards. I have one of these, a SanDisk Cruzer Fit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00812F7O8/ref=asc_df_B00812F7O811446567?smid=A2OIU67XHWXCXE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22218&creativeASIN=B00812F7O8
It’s the size of my thumbnail, 32Gb, and cost £18. Fill it up, and leave it permanently plugged into the head unit. It’s so small you’ll lose it otherwise!

The Parrot MKi9200 was on sale at Hlafords for £130 about 1month ago. I got one, an adapter and fitted (they actually did a really good job) for £180. Good price I thought considering the 08 Civic is a nightmare install (take dash off).
A new head unit would have looked a bit cack in this car.

Works very well and connects to both mine and Mrs phones (S3+HTC something). I couldnt ask for more from it really.

The Parrot MKi9200 was on sale at Hlafords for £130 about 1month ago. I got one, an adapter and fitted (they actually did a really good job) for £180. Good price I thought considering the 08 Civic is a nightmare install (take dash off).

You were lucky, Halfords made a complete hash of installing an Alpine head unit in my Octy, thankfully it was a free install with the head unit. The Kenwood cost me £150, and an install by someone who actually had a clue was about £40. I wouldn’t trust Halfords to fit a pair of wiper blades properly. Utterly bloody useless. I dropped off the car at 4pm, and was told to come back at about 4.30, I finally left at 6.00pm. 🙄

I have that Parrot bluetooth device too & think it’s a great option.
Sounds pretty good, and has various playback method options

There’s sometimes specific, simple tricks for specific cars- like, my Focus couldn’t take an aux-in as standard but I found a wee box which basically scammed the stero into taking an aux-in feed through the CD changer input. Simple and cheap.

But in the new car, I binned the stock stereo and fitted a Kenwood with android integration, much nicer- phone plugs into USB socket, phone app remembers what you were playing last time, you can control the selection from the stalk and faceplate… Lovely. Cost about £120 all-in, fitted it myself.

The guys at CAD have always been very good for help and products.

i’ve used Dension Gateways in a Golf and XC90 and they are great.

I’ve got a griffin device that plugs into your phone, you just match the frequency on the device and the car radio and away you go. I’ve used mine for months. You can get them from Argos for about £20

mrs mm was given a new head unit for xmas, its a sony mechless one, no cd mechanism, it has 3.5mm in, usb, but best of all bluetooth.
it can connect to 2 devices at once, enabling use of the ipod touch for music and phone for calls.
it cost less than 70 quid.
if you go down this route, go for one with an external mic,as the one built into the head unit isnt sensitive enough imo.

That Sony sounds interesting – link?. When I was looking last spring it seemed pretty much impossible to find a head unit without a CD player though I know I’m never going to put a disc in it.

Main priority at the time was DAB (6Music in the car has made a big difference to UK road trips) so ended up with a Kenwood head unit and add on Bluetooth kit for phone/bt streaming.

Just bite the bullet and change the head unit for one with a jack and/or usb on the front. The little transmitters are an arse is you live in or travel through big cities where all the frequencies are used up.

Spending more than the price of a perfectly good head unit on something like the parrot is nuts (and I mean the parrot is twice the price of a perfectly good head unit). If your current car doesn’t have a jack the next one certainly will and your parrot or whatever other gizmo will be valueless and obsolete.

Any of these mechless head units:

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/head-units-mechless-players/

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350577405160?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
is the one mrs mm got.
if i was buying one again an external mic would be an advantage.
ninja edited for spelling.

Fm transmitter Same as a Griffin …about £20-£30

shadowrider – Member
I’ve got a griffin device that plugs into your phone, you just match the frequency on the device and the car radio and away you go. I’ve used mine for months. You can get them from Argos for about £20

Virtually useless around Bath, Bristol, M4. I gave up on those five or six years ago, because I couldn’t drive more than seven or eight miles without the frequency chosen being swamped by some commercial radio station, or BBC Wales shouting across the Bristol Channel, or god knows how many pirate radio stations in That London. If anyone wants mine, they’re welcome to it. It’s rubbish.
A modern head unit with USB is the way to go, any phone can be plugged in, any USB thumb drive can be plugged in, any MP3 player can be plugged in…
And a DAB head unit with USB and a CD slot is about as multitasking as you could want.
Here you go: http://www.roadradio.com/Kenwood/KDC-DAB4551U/?gclid=CPanqPDK5rQCFcjKtAodIAoA3Q
£99.97.

Surf the car and see if you can connect something up. Some do (with restrictions), some don’t.

For £100 I had a pro installation in my last Beemer where the iPod song came up on the display. Current Jag can’t do anything than use the Jag supplied bits, at +£300…

And some cars you can just plug in and it also works with the changing controls.

Also often the head-unit is very car specific, and when you come to sell the car folk will be put off as its non-standard.

@ ds1

If you’re interested, I have for sale a Kenwood head unit AND iPod (30GB) which fit perfectly together.

Everything on the iPod can be controlled by the head-unit (so it’s not just an audio cable connection).

For managing the iPad, Winamp works perfectly.

Put the music on to CD…

Got the parrot fitted through work. Didn’t find it particularly durable TBH and went back to using the dedicated iPod connection that came with my Alpine head unit.

The integrated unit in my Joke works lovely.. 🙂

Dension Gateways

This to the power of infinity.

I used to have a car without a facility to play my iPod and spent silly money trying different solutions but in the end took the plunge to get one and never looked back.

Then when I sold the car made good money selling the unit on Ebay anyway.