As your friend said, getting the ICE done at a 3rd party car accessories shop will work out cheaper. You can check with your dealer about the warranty. Unless the installer really butchers the wires, you should get to keep your electrical warranty. You will get an OE harness for any HU quite easily, so the butchering part will really not be needed at all.
Yes, change the OE speakers by all means. They are quite crappy, and changing them alone will make a world of difference. Ideally, you should change all 4 speakers. If that doesn't go with your budget, I'd move the OE speakers to the back, and get good speakers in front.
The NHC has provision for 6.5" speakers in front & back. You can check-out speakers from Hertz/JBL/Blaupunkt/Alpine and choose what sounds good to you. It would be a good idea to get 2-way components in front. They will sound better than co-axials. You'll need just co-axials in the back.
6.5" Comps would cost about 5K to 7K, depending on the brand and series. 6.5" coaxials will be about 3K to 5K, depending on the brand and series.
For HUs you can check-out HUs from Pio, Blau & Alpine. You'll get MP3 & FM functionality right from about 5K. Ipods can be added to most HUs via aux-in, which will cost just about 30/- for an aux-in cable. If you want to charge and control the iPod from the HU, you'll need an iPod ready HU (starts from about 6K) and an iPod Interface cable (dictated by the HU). The cable would be between 3K and 5K, depending on the HU. Not all HUs have remotes. SOme HUs will support remotes being added on. Alpine doen't as yet have steering remotes. Pio & Blau do have steering remotes. Blau's remotes come at about 1.6K. Pio's remotes should be about the same.
If you can let us know your budget for the ICE, maybe we can give more specific suggestions.
Last edited by hydrashok : 30th April 2007 at 01:13.
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