New Head Unit ?/

[luckyluke]

I have a Rav 4.3 late 2003 model 53 plate. I thought this would be so simple but clearly its not. I want to replace my original head unit with an after market head unit. Mainly to integrate with my I Pod and perhaps bluetooth , sat nav, steering wheel control etc.. I have been told that my head unit is only single din and my choice of replacement is very limited. Is this true and can anyone suggest a replacement unit and whether it is just plug and play.I was looking at kenwood but am confused as i have not got the correct info yet. All suggestions for this topic are welcome please help.

[jedi134]

I'm sure you can put a double din in there, you may have to buy a new cage etc..have a look on eBay for the connectors. ISO to Toyota

I've seen then in there, I can't see why you can't put a double din in there :D

[DominicPriestley]

If your Rav is a 53 plate, is it not a 4.2 and not a 4.3?

[Manxrav]

Defo a 4.2, 2006 when 4.3 where introduced.

Regards Clare

[DominicPriestley]

Alpine stuff comes in single or double din...

http://www.online-caraudio.co.uk/shop/cd-mp3-head-units/alpine.html

[Joylove]

You'll need a Toyota to ISO adaptor from eBay for about £7, then any Double DIN that takes your fancy. There is a double DIN installation kit from Toyota if you have a single DIN at the moment.

http://www.toyota-tech.eu/aimuploads/%7B99F0F686-1F4E-44ED-AEF1-B585605F8983%7D/Audio%20RHD%20A3RA2-F.pdf

[Joylove]

...

[Scorpion-gb]

Fancy a new double din unit myself, never had a head unit that won't play MP3's! I had one in the Surf before I sold it and although it wasn't a well known name it was a great unit with bluetooth, sat nav, dvd player, sd card player and naturally MP3 player, think I only paid about £160 new off eBay.

[mystic]

Im curious what the headunit is you replacing? I have the very old orginal one with the tape deck in it and cd changer uner the seat, if you have anything more modern than that (with sat nav) let me know if your getting rid of it please :)

[Hoovie]

I have a Rav 4.3 late 2003 model 53 plate. I thought this would be so simple but clearly its not. I want to replace my original head unit with an after market head unit. Mainly to integrate with my I Pod and perhaps Bluetooth , sat nav, steering wheel control etc.. I have been told that my head unit is only single din and my choice of replacement is very limited. Is this true and can anyone suggest a replacement unit and whether it is just plug and play.I was looking at kenwood but am confused as i have not got the correct info yet. All suggestions for this topic are welcome please help.

Hi Luke,

Have some good advice there so far.

I wanted to reply as well as I did EXACTLY what you want to do!

So here is my take based on what I did to my RAV4.2.5 (.5 means Midlife Facelift) 2005 Model - which will be the same as your 53 plate RAV4 .....

You 100% positively have a 2-DIN Head Unit. Some people may look at it in a place like Halfords, Comet, etc and think it is a non-standard size, but where it matters - on the mechanical side it has a 2-DIN chassis and all you need to fit another 2-DIN replacement unit is to remove the old radio, take off the mounting brackets each side of the Toyota Radio and fit them to the new unit - the hole positions, thread sizes, etc are industry standard and it is a 5 minute job to swap the brackets.

As has been mentioned, you should also get a Toyota-to-ISO cable Adapter. Costs between £5-£10 on line, about 4 times that in a shop. There is sometimes confusion about what Toyota wiring standard is fitted to your age RAV as they started to change the wiring connectors around 2003 on some vehicles but NOT THE RAV4 - you need what is generally referred to as a 5+7 Large Connector style, as opposed to the 6+6 Small Connector style.

That takes care of the back. Moving to the front......

I said you 100% have a 2-DIN unit? well, behind the front panel it is, but it is strictly speaking a WIDE 2-DIN Unit, possibly unique to Toyota? (I've never seen it on any other make, anyway). The only difference is that the front panel extends over the normal width by around 3/4" each side and after you have put in your new 2-DIN head Unit, you will have a ugly gap each side. Fix for that is to get the little "filler" panels, again from eBay (or from me B) - I still have the ones I used on my 2005 RAV when I put the old unit back in before selling) - think they are maybe around a fiver or so normally?

If you look at the Pinned Topics at the top and goto the "fitting Reversing Camera" in the RAV4 section, you will see a Kenwood 2-DIN unit fitted in my RAV with these fillers.

You mentioned a leaning towards Kenwood - I fitted (as mentioned) a Kenwood unit and it was quite bluntly, FANTASTIC! Did everything I wanted and had all the features I wanted. The unit I got had the iPod connectivity build in, but I opted for the optional extra iPod Video cable, but in the end never used the feature. It also supported Steering Wheel control support, but I had to get the interface from another company (connect2 I think?) for around £35 or so.

Hope this helps. Any questions on what I said, ask away

[jirehn]

Did you already saw this part for sale?

[Scorpion-gb]

Dave, did the Kenwood fit flush to the dashboard / facia or did it protrude a little bit? Also was it a motorised tilt screen or a static one?

Thanks.

Jim.

[Hoovie]

Dave, did the Kenwood fit flush to the dashboard / facia or did it protrude a little bit? Also was it a motorised tilt screen or a static one?

Thanks.

Jim.

Hi Jim,

The one I had (may be common to all Kenwoods?) did protrude a few mm. Slight unusual in that the edges WERE flush to the edge but then they had that protusion all around sticking out I guess that was their style? (unless in fact the Toyota mounting holes were not as I said standard but actually set a little further back then the norm? I think it was the Kenwood styling feature though)

I did think about redrilling the bracket holes to have it flush mount actually bur decided it looked fine as was.

Screen on mine was fixed. As the DVD/CD slot was exposed on the top, I guess no need to move. Units with slightly larger screens would have to have either a motorised screen to reveal the slot (like the current RAV4 Sat-Nav) or maybe just a spring-release drop down screen I suppose.

This was the Kenwood I fitted .... and looking at the photo, it looks like I may have taken that while I was deciding which way to go in terms of 'flushness' and checking the appearance as it is setback there but I am sure at the end it was fitted protruding.

David.

[Scorpion-gb]

Very nice, David. I would like a Kenwood unit but I think I may have to wait for birthday and next Christmas money before I splash out!

Was it difficult to locate the GPS reciever unit? When I fitted a double din unit, with sat nav, to my Surf it was easy to tuck the reciever wire through the glove box and then hide the wire behind some of the trim around the dash. All that was visible was the reciever sitting on the passengers side of the dashboard.

[Hoovie]

I got mine on eBay actually just a few weeks old at about £200 off :D

Guy was only about 30 miles away. Had bought it then changed his mind and bought a Pioneer with bigger screen and Hard Drive!

I am not sure where I put the GPS Receiver thinking about it.

It was either just effectively wedged to the left of the radio and under the dash top,OR it was routed up the A-Pillar behind the trim and mounted between the head-lining and the roof (reason can't recall 100% is I fitted the Kenwood in the RAV4 one way and a Honda SAT-NAV in my HR-V the other (I *think* the RAV was the one under the dash).

I remember both were very simple routing and what I liked was neither receiver needed to be visible at all which made it very neat in appearance and of course, easy to wire as didn't have to bring out the wires in view

[luckyluke]

Your responses have been fantastic thankyou alll !It will probably save me a lot of money as I was considering getting a car audio specialist to do the job for me. Thats out the window now and I will attempt to do it myself.

Dave your pics above look great and I am aiming for it to look very similar.

The unit you have pictured has Sat nav, do you need anything apart from a GPS antenna to enable the sat nav to work on this model ?

I will be interested in those filler panels not sure what you would charge for them ?

Any ideas where I can get a unit similar to the one you have ? that model seems Ideal for me. It has sat nav, I am assuming it has bluetooth, also will it play and enable me to talk hands free through my iPhone ? Is there a microphone or something to enable this to work ?

How do i wire up the the steering controls to the unit ? Is this easy ? Is there a purpose built connector for the steering controls at the rear of the unit ?

Dave, How / where do you connect the Ipod to the unit above ?

Sorry for all these questions but I am trying to ensure that I have all the bits to carry out the fitting so I dont have to visit it again. And yes I will be selling the factory fitted unit once complete. I will post the model number and pics as soon as poss. Thanks again for all your responses

[yaris781]

Its pretty straight forward. You can get the fillers from eBay for a few quid. I had a pioneer AVIC-F910 BT fitted in mine. As I have The 4.2 had no steering controls.

I'm thinking of changing the Rav soon and will be taking Tbe unit out and fitting original back and will be selling the pioneer. It's got iPad/iPhone controls and bluetooth and excellent sat Nav

[Hoovie]

Its pretty straight forward. You can get the fillers from eBay for a few quid. I had a pioneer AVIC-F910 BT fitted in mine. As I have The 4.2 had no steering controls.

I'm thinking of changing the Rav soon and will be taking Tbe unit out and fitting original back and will be selling the pioneer. It's got iPad/iPhone controls and Bluetooth and excellent sat Nav

Yaris, Sounds like it could be a good buy :) And a good idea to store away the orginal head unit to refit at sell-time time - I did exactly the same

Ref the RAV4.2 and Steering Wheel controls, they were introduced on the facelift model in 2003, along with the re-jig of the Headlights/Fogs/Indicators and introduction of the Side Airbags (all in all, a very worthwhile update to the 4.2 I think)

Luke,

As far as iPod connectivity goes, I think it is a different approach needed for an iPhone then I had employed.

The iPod display will just say "connected" and the controls are disabled so there is no point in having it visible. I actually had the cable fed out to the storage tray under the dash and above the drivers knees (did you know that was there? I didn't for over a year!!) - it was ideal for the iPod - out the way, easily accessible and also out of view of prying eyes.

For the iPhone, I guess you want it more visible for the purpose of seeing the phone display? so you probably want to bring out the cable to a cradle of some type.

This is my original iPod solution using the OEM Head Unit .....

Denison iPod cradle on the left mounted on a Dashmount bracket and the cable routed though a little cutout I made on the silver trim panel. Do that carefully at the back and it is hardly noticable.

If the unit you get has bluetooth, you should get a mic to fit as well with it as that would take over from the phones mic. I fitted mine on the top steering wheel cover directly ahead of me.

I really don't know if you would connect the iPhone though the dedicated iPod connection for iPod type usage AND also connect the iPhone through bluetooth for the phone usage part - I know virtually ziltch about iPhones :( . I am sure there will be plenty of members here who could answer this one

Ref SatNav and anything apart from the GPS receiever to getting it working.... That is a good question! A fair number of integrated Sat-Nav units need the "VSP" signal to operate, which will effectively allow the SatNav to carry on working in poor signal areas using the map info and VSP together (I used my Nissan Connect Sat-Nav in miles and miles of Tunnels in Switzerland and it was giving me full guidence at all times :) ).

When I fitted the Honda unit, I installed the GPS part and had not got round to tapping into the VSP for a day or so. When I drove the car inbetween, it knew when I was turning corners but didn't know I was actually moving :D

I cannot recall if the Kenwood needed the VSP or not, BUT there IS a VSP signal on the Toyota Head Unit Wiring so even if the unit you get needs it, it is handy. For the Kenwood, I had to nothing more then plug in the cables though and it worked.

Steering wheel adapter - The unit has a input for that and I bought a special adapter for this to suit the RAV4 . I *think* it was a connect2 make but cannot remember for sure. I actually got it from a TOC member but don't have the details of what or who anymore.

Luke, glad you have decided to fit whatever you get yourself. It really is a simple job once you have the Toyota-to-ISO cable adapter.

If you want my fillers, you are welcome to them for the cost of the P&P - call it £2?

[three5]

David,

did you manage to get the steering wheel "phone control" buttons working on your 4.2? I'm interested because I haven't found a way of making these buttons work with the Sony head unit that I have in my 4.3. I suspect from SHCM's writings that it is just not possible though I have not asked him the question directly. The iPod interface on the Sony is faultless, the BT phone arrangement is very flexible and the SatNav is a TomTom.

[shcm]

I suspect from SHCM's writings that it is just not possible though I have not asked him the question directly.

It might be possible (If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?).

I *think* there are several variations in Toyota's steering wheel control implementation. Varying from something that sits on the avclan bus, to a simple resistor chain. The 4.3 is a simple resistor chain, so, with a few measurements and depending on what inputs your Sony has, it might not be too bad to do.

Share and Enjoy!

[Hoovie]

I suspect from SHCM's writings that it is just not possible though I have not asked him the question directly.

It might be possible (If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?).

And if you mix up your polarities, you may end up in the Big Bang Burger Bar!

Chris, I certainly had the steering wheel controls working in general terms on the Kenwood, but if there was a limitation on use with the phone I honestly don`t recall.

[Hoovie]

ah. if you are referring to the oem dedicated phone control on the wheel, the RAV4.2 doesnt ( or at least mine did not) have them.

not sure if that changes the picture a bit?

cheers,

David.

[Scorpion-gb]

Hi David, couldn't wait till next Christmas so I've splashed out on a Pioneer Avic F900 BT!

Can you tell me how to safely remove the stock head unit, please? Also if Luckyluke doesn't want the filler can I buy it please?

Cheers mate. Jim.

[luckyluke]

Ah Jim you beat me to it ! Where did you get your pioneer from ? How much did you pay ?

feel free to take the fillers off Dave as I have not purchased my head unit yet but I intend to do so shortly.

Also if you find out how to remove original head unit safely let me know. ive seen those instructions somewhere on this site but cant remember where ! let us know how you get on fitting the Pioneer please !

Cheers

Luke :D

[Hoovie]

There are various posts mentioning how to remove the radio on the RAV4.2, but none with pictures, so if one of you wanted to take a few photos during your swapover, it owuld be really handy for others

The posts in the Pinned Maintenance section on fitting iPod adapters to the RAV4.3 would be worth looking at, as actually the principle is identical and the radio mounting is the same as well in fact!

Here are my key tips based on my swapout ....

1) use a magnetic socket (10mm) to remove each of the 4 securing bolts to avoid it dropping down and never being seen again. If you have not got a mag bit, use bluetac or something that will keep the bolt on the end!

2) the unit slides in and out very easily - no force needed at all, so when you come to put the new unit back in, the same should be the case - if you are having a problem with it going back fully, chances are some cables are getting fouled! There is not a lot of room for the cables generally and with the TOY-to-ISO adapter cable plus others like the Mic, GPS, iPOD cable, etc, there is even less room.

3) repeat tip 1 when putting bolts back (but check everything works beforehand :) )

PS - I saw the same Kenwood that I had on eBay at around £200 - worth checking out :)