2000 Es300 Ipod Connection?

[Franko56]

Greetings looks to be a great resource here!

My son wants to know if there's a way to cennect his beloved iPod to the factory head unit on a 2000 ES300.

Please let me/us know what's what and point me the right way, thanks!

Frank

[chococat]

My son wants to know if there's a way to cennect his beloved iPod to the factory head unit on a 2000 ES300.

What you are looking for is a car cassette adapter, it looks like this:

car cassette adapter example

They can be had for $5 to $15, various makers, various places to buy them. Sound quality is good in my opinion. I have a 2000 as well and that is what I personally use. Hope that helps. :)

[Franko56]

My son wants to know if there's a way to cennect his beloved iPod to the factory head unit on a 2000 ES300.

What you are looking for is a car cassette adapter, it looks like this:

car cassette adapter example

They can be had for $5 to $15, various makers, various places to buy them. Sound quality is good in my opinion. I have a 2000 as well and that is what I personally use. Hope that helps. :)

[Franko56]

Thanks! I was looking at http://www.icarkits.com/product_info.php?products_id=3429 these, but $10 is better than $60-70 for now, he's still learning the car. I had to get him away from multimedia/nav units ($800+/-).

[BoaR]

lol 2 solutions.

#1 = chococat's suggestion for the adapter.

#2 = backsearch some of my older posts. basically I did a write up with imput from a few other forum people on how to rip out the entire center console, unsolder / resolder a pinout stereo jack to the casette line, internally so that only the plug shows on the faceplate, and you can just output to that and have it play over your system just by selecting the casette button. looks flawlessly OEM and unmodded.

solution 1 is the easiest. solution 2 is the "best" but.. ill be honest. im never doing it again. (did it on my old 95, not on my 98) someone could offer me a thousand bucks to do it and i would refuse. not that it didnt work... it was flawless. I'de consider myself a good solder guy and a great electrical guy - just the headache and time put in to get it flawless was beyond what anyone in their sane minds should go through LOL. ;)

that adapter you linked is over-the-air fm linking. by far the worst solution in my opinion. the signal gets so muddied it sounds like a soup can. tried to do it once with XM radio and after 3 minutes of driving and trying to listen i almost threw the xm unit out the window it was so bad.

hard wire all the way, regardless if you solder or wire casette adapter. Just as long as there is a wire. :)

[branshew]

The absolute best way to do it is to get a kit that will allow you to connect it directly to the head unit - not a tape adapter or a FM modulator. Both of those sound crappy. Crutchfield.com will have a few options to choose from. Probably in the $150 range.

Dension makes a couple of models that connect directly to the factory head unit in place of the 6 Disc changer. I just bought a brand new Dension Ice>Link Plus on flea bay for $20. It is a discontinued model, but I had one in several previous vehicles and they work great. It allows you to use the head unit controls to work the iPod in the same fashion that you would use the CD changer. At $20 - it's the best bang for your buck out there if you can find one. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270543508874

Only thing about this method is that you need to be comfortable taking apart the dash to get at the head unit. It's not that hard to do. Keep an eye out - I may do a write-up when I do mine.