Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

I just looked at an example of your dash and see the apparent difficulties here.

My approach would either be to just use your phone like you mentioned, however, I’d definitely go the cd player slot mounting option or suction cup arm off the windshield… or, if you’re savvy enough, make a custom mount for where the nav screen currently sits and drop a double din CarPlay unit there. It’s more work, but honestly wouldn’t be that bad. The hardest part for most people would be if this was their only car. It’s much easier to pause a project and order the right materials/design stuff, if you don’t have to drive it to work on Monday…

For example one of my cars is stripped down in my shop currently. I’m replacing all the speakers, adding sound damping and deadening materials, rewiring signal lines to a new smart amp, rewiring my trailer lights, and building a new custom dual relay board to control a front facing cam and reverse cam with a 3way switch. There’s other stuff because this snowballed but you get the point.

All of this is attainable because I don’t have to rely on it as my only means of transportation. If you only have one vehicle, just use your phone for now and be more mindful during the next vehicle search. Either ensure it comes with CarPlay or at least a double din head unit (unfortunately dying off in newer cars).

Lastly, as a final side note to this novel, you could consider an old iPad mini that you set up to use as a dedicated infotainment. There’s more to it than simply slapping it into your car, as you’d need it jailbroken or with all the proper shortcuts to make it seamless. Just a thought.