I recently purchased a 2007 Toyota Solara convertible SLE. It came with a factory installed GPS/CD Player. The car has a JBL system. The cost to update the disc in the GPS is $169. For that money, and because the car will be stored in the winter, I will purchase a portable GPS. Has anyone ever replaced the GPS console in a Solara with an aftermarket CD player/receiver? What brands or models have worked?
Start with www.crutchfield.com to look for a replacement.
Ed
Another vote for Crutchfield. Does the current one not work?
That is the main reason I won’t buy a GPS with a vehicle. My Iphone GPS doesn’t require me to pay to upgrade the maps. It’s done automatically.
Vehicles are starting to go that way too. Hyundai is releasing a Sonata with an Android head unit this year. It will basically be a touch screen that hooks into your phone and just displays whatever your phone tells it to. If you want to upgrade the system, you get a new phone and keep using the car’s stock hardware.
Chevy is going to have it available for Android and iPhone starting next year.
For cars with discs, you can often find people selling last year’s disc on Craigslist or eBay after purchasing the current disc. If you don’t mind being one year behind all the time, you can save significant money doing this.
@MikeInNH - Your iPhone GPS, like all phone GPS, requires a cell phone signal to work properly. I drive plenty of places with sparse or non-existent cell service. In addition, phone GPS eats into your monthly data allowance.
I would suggest that the OP not bother changing the head unit and just get a window mount Garmin GPS. When you change out the head unit on the Toyota you will spend a fair amount of time and money to get all of the steering wheel controls to work or, alternatively, you will lose the use of the steering wheel radio controls. The standalone Garmin will be cheap and can be ordered with lifetime map updates.
@MikeInNH - Your iPhone GPS, like all phone GPS, requires a cell phone signal to work properly.
No it doesn’t. Maps is the only part that MIGHT not work properly because it needs cell coverage to download the map for the area you’re in. But there are apps you can that download the maps and stores them on your phone. I haven’t run across situation where I needed that…and MOST people will never need it either.
You only use up data if the phone is constantly loading maps.
If you are going to another gps system can’t you just keep the player and turn off the gps part?
@MikeInNH - According to Apple’s website you are wrong. GPS requires data services.
Try turning off your data and running your GPS app and see how far down the highway you get.
Mike, like I said. Turn off your data and try to navigate. If your GPS still navigates ACCURATELY then I will back down and say I am wrong.
GPS works in remote areas. It’s the maps that depend on cell updates, if they’re downloaded it’ll work.
Mike, like I said. Turn off your data and try to navigate. If your GPS still navigates ACCURATELY then I will back down and say I am wrong
Bloody - Like I said and the video showed…you need to install a map app. The app downloads all the maps to your phone. Then you can EASILY use GPS without data.
@MikeInNH - I stand corrected. But I still prefer a standalone GPS unit. It has a bigger screen and more closely approximates what is built into the vehicle. They are relatively inexpensive and most now offer free lifetime maps (if you buy the right version).
GPS is a ‘passive’ service, but it requires access to a database in order to provide you with correlation between the coordinates returned by the receiver and actual roads, landmarks, etc. This database can be online or on suitably large media such as a DVD, hard drive, flash memory, etc. (when built-in GPS for cars came out, a DVD was the only reasonably-priced storage media that could handle storing and retrieving that much data)
(when built-in GPS for cars came out, a DVD was the only reasonably-priced storage media that could handle storing and retrieving that much data)
You can now store all the maps of the world on a 1 inch square size flash drive. One geek that works for me showed me is 1 tb flash drive he just bought ($800). With 1tb - you can store all the maps of the world, plus all the street views, plus all the personal information of everyone who lives in each of the houses.
Honestly I hardly ever find myself without data these days. And I’m on AT&T, which is supposedly the second best network for coverage. If I’m concerned about it, I just tell Google where I’m going and it will store the appropriate map area on my phone for me.
The nice thing about smartphone-based navigation is that the maps are updated regularly and for free. I bought the new Acura nav DVD last year because the old maps were very inaccurate. They still hadn’t updated roads that had been added 2 years before the new DVD was published. IMO, that’s a ripoff for a map upgrade that costs so much money.
Meanwhile, Google already has a highway extension that hasn’t been put in yet, marked as a future roadway. It won’t surprise me if that changed to a navigable roadway in Maps within a day of the highway opening.
The other nice thing about phone-based nav is the croudsourcing of locations. Sometimes GPS gets the location of something wrong. If that happens in my Acura, I’m stuck with it. I just have to remember that it’s wrong the next time I go there. If it happens on my phone, I submit a correction and it’s usually live within a week after they’ve checked to be sure I’m not lying.
I’m all for the new in car displays that just echo what your phone sends them. It’s cheaper, for one because the manufacturer doesn’t have to spend a bunch of money coming up with some proprietary system that doesn’t work as well as Maps, map updates will happen routinely throughout the year for free, and if I think my navigation system is too clunky, I just get a new phone and it’s upgraded. Win-win for everyone.