My 04 X-Type had a base stereo unit, I want to up date with one that have Navigation, Blue Tooth and rear camera, this is the question: Should I get a used OM unit and how difficult via wiring it involve? How it compare to an after market unit? I have installed a whole system with big amp. and sub woofer on other car before, but this time I only want a head unit and use all the speakers in the car What unit is the best on the low price side, and what site?

 

Thang, upgrading to the Nav stereo is not a simple "remove one radio and plug in the other radio". The factory Nav unit has a lot of other stuff added to it that makes the conversion being a very labor intensive thing. The obvious piece being that you have to add the antenna for the nav unit and as I recall, there are a few other sensors that are needed too. The big deal breaker for most is that you have to rip the dash part and convert that over to the automatic controls.

So, as much as I love to keep cars stock, this is one of those situations where you will most likely be better served going with an aftermarket unit.

 

Thanks Thermo, just want to hear some input, that's what I thought, an upgrade that with OM will involved a lots of intergrate components. I installed a whole after market stereo system on a Buick Reatta, it's pretty much straight forward, but if I want connect to steering wheel control, that's another issue, it doesn't have that on the car years ago.

 

Thang, there are modules these days that you can get that will adapt any steering wheel controls to an aftermarket radio as long as the radio is capable of remote operation (the higher end ones are). So, don't get fooled into thinking that the switches on the steering wheel will be dead once you upgrade the radio.

I used to do a lot of car stereo installs. Back in the early 90's, my T-bird had a radio in it that did surround sound and even karaoke. It was a fun toy.

 

Is there a write up about installing an aftermarket unit? The radio on my '03 X-Type is sounding like is getting no reception and at first I thought it was the antenna but CDs are sounding the same way so it is probably the radio unit itself.
Lots of generic 2 DIN units on EBay and I am also looking at Jensen units with the built in navigation and all the bells and whistles. Crutchfield sells an installation kit with all the brackets, wire harnes and stering wheel control adapter tha should stay mplify things.
I am curious on which units other members gave installed and pluses and minuses of each. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

 

VTGBoss, I have installed more stereos over the years than I care to admit to, granted, never one in a Jag, but having had the radio in my X-Type pulled out, it is the same sort of setup.

The first thing we need to make sure of is that you have the basic radio, not the NAV radio. I ask this because the NAV radio has the climate controls inside the radio and this makes the change over much more involved. So, if you have a radio and the climate controls above the radio, you are set for an easy swap. If the climate controls are inside the radio, you will be best served by finding another factory radio.

Before getting too far into the actual install itself, you need to know a vital measurement. This is the allowable radio depth. At some point you are going to run into something in the dash when installing the radio. This is the measurement to that item. I don't have that number in front of me, but should be able to be found at a site like Crutchfield.

Once you know the depth measurement, the next step is finding a radio with the features you want (NAV, USB input, build in harddrive, etc). The factory speakers should be able to handle whatever power a head unit puts out as the factory system had a built in amp that had a fair amount of power. So, unless you have a bad speaker, you should be good in that department.

Once you know the radio that you are after, you will need to find an install kit that will work with the radio that you are wanting (single din, double din, din and a half, etc install kit). You will also want a wiring harness. Sometimes the install kits come with a wiring harness. Any which way, a wiring kit is money well spent. The big thing to keep in mind is whether you need the wiring kit that will keep your stereo controls or not. Not all wiring kits have this as part of it and may require the purchase of a second kit specifically to keep the steering wheel controls. The main benefit of getting the wiring kit is to prevent from having to cut into the factory wiring harness which can lead to more problems if you are not careful.

From there, you will need some basic tools (screw drivers, putty knife, wire stripper, crimper, etc) so you can access the fasteners for the radio and to attach the wiring harness to the radio.

I recommend before ripping into the dash, you make all the connections to the radio so that all you have to do is remove the trim around the radio, unbolt the factory radio, undo the plugs, plug in the new radio and fasten it down. This is where you will need the instructions for the wiring harness and the radio and put them side by side. You are going to simply match up wires. Battery power from the harness to the battery power for the radio, left/front positive speaker wire on the wiring harness to the left/front positive speaker wire on the radio harness. Etc, etc, etc. Any wires you don't match up, take a little bit of electrical tape and tape them up individually to make sure you don't make unintentional connections leading to random problems. For attaching the two wires together, this can be done using "red butt connectors". Please note that the butt connectors come in many colors and this color has a significance. In short, the color dictates the size wires that will fit into the connector and not be damaged when crimped. If you put too small of a wire into a connector and crimp it, it can act more like a knife and simply chop the wire into pieces. I also recommend getting a bathtub style crimper (forms a U shaped crimp). A standard crimper (crushes the connector into a flat/oval shape) will do the job, but from a structural point, the bathtub crimper makes for a stronger connection. While on this subject, crimping the snot out of the butt connector does not make things better, regardless of the style crimper that you use. If you squeeze a crimper to the point that you are seeing spots (ie, really hard), while the mechanical side of things is probably pretty good, you have also most likely damaged the wiring and made for a weak connection there which can fail on you in a short period of time. In short, you want to give it a good squeeze such that if you give the wire a tug after making the crimp, things stay together without seeing damage to the wire strands. This may be something that you want to play with a little bit before doing the actual radio connections so you can get a feel.

From this point, you should be able to pull one radio and install the other.

The only other issue that I can think of is making sure you have the correct size antenna port on the radio. This may require the addition of a small adapter that will convert between one size antenna plug to another.

After you do this, you will start laughing as it will be a fairly easy thing to do. May take a little bit of fine tuning to make sure the radio sits where you want it to and is square to the rest of the dash, but that is easy to do.

 

Thanks Thermo,


I have done a fair amount of research and I am pretty sure I can handle the installation. I do have the basic radio with no navigation so any double DIN unit will fit with the right adapter. What I have so far is:


Metra 99-9501G Single/Double DIN Dash Install Kit forSelect 2002-07 Jaguar
Metra 70-9500 Receiver Wiring Harness - Connect a car stereo in select2003-08 Jaguar S-Type and 2002-04 X-Type models
Metra 40-EU10 Antenna Adapter
Axxess ASWC-1 Steering Wheel Control Adapter - Connects your car'ssteering wheel audio controls to select aftermarket car stereos.

The last one might not be needed since some head units include the interface to the steering wheel controls.
At this time I am more interested in specific units that members have used and have proven to work well. Hundreds of different Chinese unit on EBay but hard to tell which are good and which are junk. Obviously the brand name units will tend to be better but the cost can also be high.

Again, thanks for your help; really good advice.
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Just some input from somebody who held out for an X with the Nav and wanting more options for music input - stick with the non-nav models and get an aftermarket headunit! I didn't realize how much of a pain it would be to be able to listen to what I want to in this car. I ended up buying an ACM on eBay ($600 - choke) after realizing that I can't swap out the headunit due to the a/c controls being in the headunit and everything being optical cables. At this point the controls and nav are very outdated and with the technological advancements of aftermarket headunits (and a plethora of designs) I would have been better served not getting a car with nav. I've actually been toying with the idea of swapping out my nav for the standard non-nav headunit and putting the stand-alone heater controls back in the dash like my first X had just so I can have a better screen and more control over my music. Right now I'm using the ACM (which I think is broke due to the force with which I had to insert my stereo adapter onto it - only getting partial sound out of the passenger speakers and I have to turn it up much higher than my previous stereo to rca male adapter) with a bluetooth adapter so that I have some semblance of bluetooth but honestly I would have been better served forgoing the nav option. Just my $.02.

 

chknhwk,
Thanks for the background. I do have the plain Jane radio so this is not an issue for me. I have found out that as long as the new units is 170 mm or less in depth it should fit fine, particularly if the wires are on the bottom portion of the back section.
Lots of units available on EBay and I am trying to decide whether to get one that is Android or WinCE based or just a plain one. I will get one with Navigation and the newer ones have Android that allows you do download Google Maps and other apps. and work the GPS using the hotspot on your cell phone if you want. Also, many of the newer units are doing away with the DVD/CD player since everything is now synchronized to cell phones and digital downloads.
So many choices and this is why I would be interested in what double DIN unit other members have used with good results.