Well the first month has been a battle between me and Jaguar's sound engineers.

This has been the only car I've ever had where replacing the radio requires infinite patience, the hands of a six year old, lateral thinking and the vocabulary of a dock worker.

How someone ever came up with idea that the best place for radio wiring to terminate is the boot and the second best place is under the rear seats really is beyond me.

Currently I have a nice Alpine GPS/DAB/iPod headunit installed, but it doesn't make any sound or raise the aerial as I've absolutely know idea where the cables for the speakers or aerial trigger are.

As a comparison, swapping out my SAAB's Harman Kardon amplified system required changing one pin on the ISO cable, and routing a GPS receiver to the top of the dash, through the centre speaker grille.

There has to be an easier way, short of pulling most of the interior out, to fit a radio?

 

I've moved this post from the end of your Intro thread to X308 forum. Members here with the same model will be able to advise on the wiring.

Graham

 

Use this... http://www.jagrepair.com/images/Auto.../jagxj2000.pdf ....pg 8 in the reference which says figure 16.1 & 16.2 (scroll down about 3/4 the way) depending on the system you have.

Mine is a VDP, so my system wiring was a nightmare, so I bypassed it and only used the wire to the doors (where I replaced the stock speakers with Rockford Fosgates). I am working on getting a new sub put in, but it was tough finding one with such shallow depth to put in the same sub factory hole. I have a Clarion single din that I made a insert to hold the unit out of 1/2" clear lexan. You can paint the lexan black (or whatever color trips your trigger) from the inside facing into the dash and it'll give you a nice finish. Just wait until you have the unit cut to fit first or you chance scratching the paint. If I were home (which will be in about a week or so), I'd snap a shot of it for ya.
There's also a member who had a thread I believe called "Ask me them stereo questions" or something like that. There are tons of Q&A there to help ya, but I'm unsure if he's monitoring the thread anymore if you have a question.

 

Do you have the factory alpine amp and gps in the trunk? Depending on how much your willing to modify the stock harness, which most people rightly shy away from, you can do what I did and jump into the speaker wires at the front drivers side and passenger side footwells, as well as at the base of the B pillars and go that route. Then jump the sub and antenna controls through the factory dash plug, which is already run into the trunk. Since youll most likely never reinstall the factory equipment why not utilize the abundant wiring that Jaguar already took the trouble to run. Takes allot of patience and wire tracing though.

 

I can definitely agree with k-man, it takes a lot of patience and tracing. I replaced my mast antenna with a fixed interior mounted window unit (https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ve-one-103359/ ...the install is at the bottom of the post). The mast antenna makes the car look so antiquated IMO.
Here's that thread on the stereo's, you just have to skim through it... https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...estions-87190/

 

why change out a radio that sounds as good as a friends cads boise, my harman karman sounds perfect

 

Firstly, mine is an Alpine,

secondly, there has been a massive improvement in "in-car technology" since the XJ8 was introduced, so I would like to be able to send and receive telephone calls, hands free, use a sat-nav, and play music from a digital device usb stick/memory card/iPod/bluetooth in one unit, which the existing unit does not do.

What is a "friends cads boise"?

 

I went w/ Kenwood DPX501BT & it does all those things flawlessly .

 

How much modification did that take?

 

Well my replacement is in,

but has yet to be connected to the speakers.

Power was taken from the white plug behind the dash (four wires) leaving everything else in either the AI-Net cable or yellow FORD plug.

Amp and CD changer are out, so I'll need to send pre-amp cable to the rear, where the new amp will be, and then find which plug then goes to the speakers.

It's a 5 channel amp so four will be for FL/FR and RL/RR, and the one for the factory sub-woofer. I think that a crossover will be needed for the front tweeters as I understand they have their own connections, whilst the rear doors have one built in between the mid and tweeter using only one set of cables.

I'm happy to be corrected, thus making the job easier.

 

I had it done professionally , he didn't disclose the details but he wasn't angry either lol. Speakers were also toast from a decade + of heat so I went w/ Rockford Fosgate P165 6.5" 2-ways best bang for the buck currently on the market (literally).
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-5858c2N...unch-P165.html

 

Did you replace the subwoofer?

 

I had that removed & 2 twelve inch Memphis Audio subs in a ported box installed in the trunk. It sounds really good & clean, not the bone jarring rattle/boom-fest you hear in so many vehicles these days.