Hey guys, I was wondering is it possible to take the 05 stereo the one with the mp3 cd player into an 04? I wanna have the mp3 cd player support. Anyone know if this can be done?

 

No, they are not compatible. I tried an 05 head unit in my 03 and some things worked, but others, like volume control just didn't. I'm sure there was a plethora of other small issues too that I didn't even bother exploring.

 

ah thanks for the tip... im just trying to figure out how i can play mp3s... probably just gonna have to get an ipod or something with a fm transmitter.

is there a way to hook up an ipod or something like that to the bose system??

 

I got the 05 radio to work with my 04. now i'm trying to get the temp **** to work with my 04. we'll see what happens.

will keep you all updated when i'm done cutting up stuff hehe

 

Got a thread or howto for that 05 in an 04? I like the looks of the 05 radio better then the 04.

I'd also love to know if the metal pieces of the 05 dash could be fitted to a previous year, that way I could get rid of these crappy painted plastic things

 

Same here. God of CPU, do you know how hard would it be to retrofit just the center console of a 04 with a 05+ verison?



TIA

 

It would probably be easier to have a 03 metal dash kit fabricated. If I could only get the current dash in CAD I know a place that could cut/form them.

 

I think its an intractable problem. They changed a whole lot of parts to make everything fit together to the point where it would probably be cheaper for you to trade in your 04 and get a new 05 then it would be to buy all the parts for the 04. Yeah the dashes look kinda similar from a distance, but you start looking at the details of what connects to what and once you replace one thing, it starts a domino effect to replacing the other things.

 

There are a bunch of different places that will do a 3D scan of any part to get a CAD design for relativly cheaply (under a few hundred dollars). The real problem is that the 04 dash part for the radio is a very complicated part that includes a lot of little screw holes, the vents, and is fairly large. You would need to do at least part of this part in plastic to duplicate the proper structure and that kind of stuff gets extremely expensive for a small production run. Even if you get the work done very cheaply and do it perfect on the first run, your probably looking at at least a 5 grand investment to get the first one made and probably much much more.

 

I'm gonna let y'all in on a little secret now. The 05 dash isn't actually metal. Its at least mostly plastic, I really think its all plastic and the aluminum design is just a nice printed sticker. I really don't know exactly how its done, but in any case, i'm impressed, its done extremly well, I couldn't tell any of this until I actually took it apart, but it most certainly doesn't use a whole lot of real metal. Not that this really makes a difference, cause the 05 dash is still much nicer then the earlier models, even if it is just plastic.

 

Thanks for the inside view GOC. I'll just have to live with my '04 center console. Thanks again.