Sub-dash modifications?

[Patty Winter]

I was just on the Crutchfield site browsing in-dash GPS navigation
receivers, and after stating that I was looking for ones that would
fit a 2013 Outback, there was an installation note that said,
"Modifications to your vehicle's sub-dash are required." What does
that mean? What's a sub-dash, and by "modification," do they mean
"cutting a larger hole"?


Patty

[gregz]

I think it's a module stuck into the main dash. My 1998 has an ash tray,
blank, receiver. Actually I have no blank since additional receiver was
installed. Modification could be anything, including buying pre made
faceplate.

Greg

[Frank]

Speaking of in dash gps's, my son has one in his Mercedes.
It is really nice and with voice commands and Blue Tooth he never takes
his hands off the wheel for directions and phone calls.
But, system went down and he had it repaired under warranty.
Dealer said that if not for the warranty it would have cost him $3,000.

For about $200 you can get these features in a Garmin Nuvi with somewhat
smaller screen. Plus you get map updates.

[benjammin]

Agreed.

The new top-of-the-line Garmin nuvi 3597LMTHD has a five-inch
high-definition display, lifetime maps and traffic alerts, voice
activation, Bluetooth, a Smartphone link, and more. It is also rather
pricey at $380, but Garmin makes a wide range of other, less-expensive
GPS's.

One of the benefits of a standalone -- versus an in-dash unit -- is
that you can take your GPS with you. I've used my five-year-old Garmin
in my own car, in rental cars all over the U.S., and for exploring
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula (directions are in English, not Spanish); it
has worked great. I load it with destinations and points of interest
from my desktop computer before leaving home. I have a GPS travel kit
with a 12V power cord, GPS mount, and a small Radio Shack amplified
external speaker.

A few years back, Garmin changed their map file format; people who had
factory-installed onboard Garmin GPS systems on equipment like high-end
BMW motorcycles suddenly found that Garmin was not offering map updates
for their old GPS's, only the newest models. If they had standalone GPS
systems, they may have grudgingly purchased a new GPS device; at least
they would then have current maps.

[Patty Winter]

In article <2013042608...@news.giganews.com>, <Ben Jammin> wrote:
>
>One of the benefits of a standalone -- versus an in-dash unit -- is
>that you can take your GPS with you.

I have a Garmin eTrex 20, so that isn't an issue for me. I want a
combo GPS/radio in the car.


Patty

[Frank]

eTrex is not a car gps. I have a different model eTrex and use it for
hunting. You can put road maps in it and use in a car but it does not
give voice commands, speed, traffic and all the other stuff you need for
hands free operation. In the car, you'd have to be looking at it or
have a friend use it for you and tell you when to turn.

For my Subaru, I have a Garmin Nuvi 1450LMT bought a couple of years ago
for less than $150. It has a 5 inch screen. I seldom use it but it has
saved me from getting lost or misdirected several time. The LMT
designation means lifetime maps and traffic. Map upgrades were pricey
at the time, maybe $90.

My wife has a different older model. She uses hers more frequently than
mine to avoid speed traps as the unit will alert you when you exceed the
speed limit.

Then there are the people that just use their smart phones when they
need a gps.

[benjammin]

Perfectly understandable.

If you have a Best Buy in your vicinity, they may have a car
installation bay in addition to selling car stereo / GPS units; my
local store does. They may be able to advise the best unit for your
Outback and install it for you. I'm sure there are other dealers /
installers as well.

[Patty Winter]

In article <kleafo$775$1...@dont-email.me>,

Frank <frankdo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>On 4/26/2013 11:54 AM, Patty Winter wrote:
>> In article <2013042608...@news.giganews.com>, <Ben Jammin> wrote:
>>>
>>> One of the benefits of a standalone -- versus an in-dash unit -- is
>>> that you can take your GPS with you.
>>
>> I have a Garmin eTrex 20, so that isn't an issue for me. I want a
>> combo GPS/radio in the car.
>

>eTrex is not a car gps.

Uh, I know. That's why I said I want a different one for the car. I
was responding to Ben's posting and explaining why I don't need a car
GPSr that can also be removed for handheld use, such as a Nuvi.


Patty

[Patty Winter]

In article <2013042610...@news.giganews.com>, <Ben Jammin> wrote:
>
>If you have a Best Buy in your vicinity, they may have a car
>installation bay in addition to selling car stereo / GPS units; my
>local store does. They may be able to advise the best unit for your
>Outback and install it for you. I'm sure there are other dealers /
>installers as well.

I do have a BB near me and might check with them. But I've dealt with
Crutchfield in the past and found them very knowledgeable and helpful,
so I'll probably buy something from them. They include the necessary
Subaru mounting kits free with the navigation receiver.

So other than Greg's guess, no one here has any thoughts about what
a "sub-dash modification" might entail? Guess I'll drop a note to
Crutchfield.


Patty

[Frank]

I guess it is good for you to consider the options. I have no idea what
a combination dash gps radio costs myself. I do know that I keep cars
as long as I can. My 2003 10 year old Forester is running fine and I
may keep it until cost of repairs exceeds book value.

Trouble with things like gps's, digital cameras and computers is that
they are almost antiques after 10 years. A new map may not even fit in
the memory of an old gps.

I had an old eTrex and an old Invion gps that I just gave to my brother
in law as replacement with modern units was so cheap.

[Patty Winter]

In article <klejbu$re6$1...@dont-email.me>,
Frank <frankdo...@comcast.net> wrote:

[extraneous quotage deleted]

>I have no idea what
>a combination dash gps radio costs myself.

Subaru charges $2,600, because their navigation system requires that
you also buy the moonroof. Oh, and you can only get that option on the
Limited edition, so there's another $4,000 over the Premium. So if I
wanted to buy one from Subaru, it would cost me over $6,000...

By contrast, I can get a nice major-brand nav system from Crutchfield
for less than $1,000, although I may go for one that's a bit higher.
Certainly no higher than $1,200.

>I do know that I keep cars
>as long as I can. My 2003 10 year old Forester is running fine and I
>may keep it until cost of repairs exceeds book value.

Well, I've got 10 years on you: my Legacy is a 1993. And it's the
younger of my two cars. :-)


Patty

[Your Name]

In article <2013042608...@news.giganews.com>, Ben Jammin wrote:
>

> One of the benefits of a standalone -- versus an in-dash unit -- is
> that you can take your GPS with you.

Another benefit is that you can easily update it to a newer model.
In-built ones are often difficult to impossible to replace. The good ol'
days of the standardised car radio size are long gone, and most makers
these days stupidly have custom-made systems.

[Your Name]

In article <kldsrf$p8h$1...@dont-email.me>, frankdo...@comcast.net wrote:
> On 4/25/2013 8:57 PM, gregz wrote:
> > Patty Winter <pat...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >> I was just on the Crutchfield site browsing in-dash GPS navigation
> >> receivers, and after stating that I was looking for ones that would
> >> fit a 2013 Outback, there was an installation note that said,
> >> "Modifications to your vehicle's sub-dash are required." What does
> >> that mean? What's a sub-dash, and by "modification," do they mean
> >> "cutting a larger hole"?
> >

> > I think it's a module stuck into the main dash. My 1998 has an ash tray,
> > blank, receiver. Actually I have no blank since additional receiver was
> > installed. Modification could be anything, including buying pre made
> > faceplate.
>

> Speaking of in dash gps's, my son has one in his Mercedes.
> It is really nice and with voice commands and Blue Tooth he never takes
> his hands off the wheel for directions and phone calls.
> But, system went down and he had it repaired under warranty.
> Dealer said that if not for the warranty it would have cost him $3,000.
>
> For about $200 you can get these features in a Garmin Nuvi with somewhat
> smaller screen. Plus you get map updates.

Here in New Zealand over recent years the importing of second-hand cars
from Japan has become popular by many small car dealers ... but the
problem is that the car radio doesn't have the same receiver bandwidth to
tune into most New Zealand radio stations (a relatively easy fix with the
purchase of an expander), and the in-built navigation / touchscreen
control systems are often only in Japanese (which, as you say, is
hideously expensive to replace properly).

[Your Name]

In article <klejbu$re6$1...@dont-email.me>, frankdo...@comcast.net wrote:
>
> I do know that I keep cars as long as I can. My 2003 10 year old
> Forester is running fine and I may keep it until cost of repairs
> exceeds book value.

I've had my non-Subaru car for almost 15 years (and it was four years old
when I bought it) and it's still going fine. :-)

Just a few fairly minor repairs - a bit of rust and a new starter motor
being probably the two most expensive, although it's coming up for a
cambelt replacement in the next year or two. It's only had two new
batteries too.

Some anonymous *beep*ing *beep* in a parking lot dinged the side only a
few days after I got it back from the rust rapairs! :-(

[Your Name]

In article <517ac81e$0$52813$742e...@news.sonic.net>, Patty Winter

Personally I have no use for an electronic navigation system at all. I use
these old fashioned things called "printed maps" - much easier to use,
they work properly (without telling you to drive down a one-way street,
through a lake, etc.) and most thieves aren't interested in stealing
them. :-)

[Frank]

Good for you. My first Forester would have been 15 years old but a PT
Cruiser did not like it and destroyed it. My wife's Forester is only 5
years old.

I'm wondering if they even had gps's 20 years ago. I remember my
computer at the time had a 40 mB hard drive. This one has a 1 terabyte
hard drive. That's 250,000 times the storage capacity. With Moore's
law in force, I don't think I'd buy a car with a built in gps.

[Frank]

I seldom use my gps and same with my cell phone, but I have both for
back up use and emergencies. Unlike a paper map, if you get lost the
gps will reroute you. Paper maps won't tell you when a bridge is out
for repair but gps with map updates and traffic will tell you.

I mentioned my wife using hers to help obey speed. Its those areas
where the speed limit drops to maybe 25 mph and that's where they set up
the speed traps.

[cl...@snyder.on.ca]

On Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:59:40 +1200, Your...@YourISP.com (Your Name)
wrote:

88 New Yorker bought at 6 years, kept for 12 and sold as a running
vehicle.
Current 1996 Ranger purchaced with 308,000k last july? for 2500 -
likely own it for another 6 or more years.
2002 Taurus purchaced last summer with 54000k - likely keep it for
another 10 - by that time my wife will likely not be driving any more.

[Frank]

Interesting. I see you drive on the left side of the road there.
I had a friend that was trying to import Japanese cars into the US and
they had there driving sides switched. He gave up because of the
paperwork morass which required complete documentation for each and
every car vs importing a fleet of cars with only one documentation.

I understand keeping a car in Japan beyond a few years is prohibitively
expensive because of mandated work that must be done and cars are traded
in early and sent out of Japan.

[John Varela]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:16:13 UTC, Ben Jammin wrote:

> A few years back, Garmin changed their map file format; people who had
> factory-installed onboard Garmin GPS systems on equipment like high-end
> BMW motorcycles suddenly found that Garmin was not offering map updates
> for their old GPS's, only the newest models. If they had standalone GPS
> systems, they may have grudgingly purchased a new GPS device; at least
> they would then have current maps.

I bought a Garmin 2610 GPS when it was the top of their line. The
list price was about $1,000 and the street price that I paid was
about $800. A year later they changed the map format and renamed the
unit the 2620. A few years later they stopped supporting my map
format.

I would never buy another Garmin product. They can't be trusted. I
now have a couple of TomToms, an expensive one that I keep in my car
and a cheap one that I use in rental cars when I travel.

--
John Varela

[Your Name]

True, but such features also require an expensive mobile data plan to
receive the "real-time" updates (usually, some models I believe do use
old-fashioned radio-type signals), unlike a paper map and using your own
eyes to read signs. :-)

[Your Name]

In article <klf4nn$hne$1...@dont-email.me>, frankdo...@comcast.net wrote:
> On 4/26/2013 3:53 PM, Patty Winter wrote:
> > In article <klejbu$re6$1...@dont-email.me>,
> > Frank <frankdo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > [extraneous quotage deleted]
> >
> >> I have no idea what
> >> a combination dash gps radio costs myself.
> >
> > Subaru charges $2,600, because their navigation system requires that
> > you also buy the moonroof. Oh, and you can only get that option on the
> > Limited edition, so there's another $4,000 over the Premium. So if I
> > wanted to buy one from Subaru, it would cost me over $6,000...
> >
> > By contrast, I can get a nice major-brand nav system from Crutchfield
> > for less than $1,000, although I may go for one that's a bit higher.
> > Certainly no higher than $1,200.
> >
> >
> >> I do know that I keep cars
> >> as long as I can. My 2003 10 year old Forester is running fine and I
> >> may keep it until cost of repairs exceeds book value.
> >
> > Well, I've got 10 years on you: my Legacy is a 1993. And it's the
> > younger of my two cars. :-)
>

> Good for you. My first Forester would have been 15 years old but a PT
> Cruiser did not like it and destroyed it. My wife's Forester is only 5
> years old.
>
> I'm wondering if they even had gps's 20 years ago.

Actual GPS has been around for a long time ... but most people use the
term when they really mean a navigation device, which is a different thing
entirely (although it does use GPS to know where it is).

> I remember my computer at the time had a 40 mB hard drive. This one has
> a 1 terabyte hard drive. That's 250,000 times the storage capacity.

I'm still using my 15 year old computer everyday for both my own business
and leisure uses. I did add a 120GB hard drive to accompany the original
4GB, upgraded the RAM to 288MB (originally 32MB I think), and upgraded the
operating system to Mac OS X 10.1 (which itself is around 12 years old)
... but it's still the original 266MHz PowerPC G3 chip. :-)

> With Moore's law in force, I don't think I'd buy a car with a built in
> gps.

Yep, that's another the issue with these built-in gimmicky devices. AS
well as usually being custom-made, they're out of date even before you
finish signing the paperwork to purchase a brand new car, and difficult
and expesnive (if not practically impossible) to properly replace.

[Patty Winter]

In article <klf4nn$hne$1...@dont-email.me>,

Frank <frankdo...@comcast.net> wrote:

>> [extraneous quotage deleted]

>I'm wondering if they even had gps's 20 years ago.

The GPS constellation became fully operational just under 20
years ago, but until 2000, when Selective Availability was
turned off, the system wasn't much use to consumers, because
the margin of error on one's location was up to 300 feet.
(Military GPS receivers were able to compensate for SA.)


Patty

[Frank]

There are different traffic options and if you want real time you will
have to have a subscription:

http://www8.garmin.com/traffic/

The one I have with receiver built into charger puts in current detours
but will not tell you how crowded the road is as with a subscription.

Beauty of the Garmin LMT units is that once bought there are no extra
costs. Only if I were on different roads full time like a truck driver
would I have a subscription service myself.

[Frank]

I was curious about your comments and crossposted to a.s.g.garmin for
comment and got this response:

> The poster doesn't remember what the hell happened, and cannot be
> trusted.
>
> The 2610, 2620, 2650, and 2660 were all released at the same time in
> 2003. The 10 and 50 used Compact Flash cards for storage, and the 20 and
> 60 used micro hard drives. They all included exactly the same maps.
>
> Garmin DID change the map formats (or at least, the compression) which
> did leave the 26x0 out in the cold, but that wasn't until like ... 2009?
> 2010? Something like that. Call it six years after the introduction of
> the 26x0 models. That might be "a few years later" but the worst is that
> you end up with a GPS that doesn't have current maps. And we've had the
> discussion before about how rapidly roadmaps go stale if you've got
> enough brains to occasionally read a sign...
>

[John Varela]

On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:16:03 UTC, Frank
<frankdo...@comcast.net> wrote:

> On 4/26/2013 9:55 PM, John Varela wrote:
> > On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:16:13 UTC, Ben Jammin wrote:
> >
> >> A few years back, Garmin changed their map file format; people who had
> >> factory-installed onboard Garmin GPS systems on equipment like high-end
> >> BMW motorcycles suddenly found that Garmin was not offering map updates
> >> for their old GPS's, only the newest models. If they had standalone GPS
> >> systems, they may have grudgingly purchased a new GPS device; at least
> >> they would then have current maps.
> >
> > I bought a Garmin 2610 GPS when it was the top of their line. The
> > list price was about $1,000 and the street price that I paid was
> > about $800. A year later they changed the map format and renamed the
> > unit the 2620. A few years later they stopped supporting my map
> > format.
> >
> > I would never buy another Garmin product. They can't be trusted. I
> > now have a couple of TomToms, an expensive one that I keep in my car
> > and a cheap one that I use in rental cars when I travel.
> >
>
> I was curious about your comments and crossposted to a.s.g.garmin for
> comment and got this response:
>
> > The poster doesn't remember what the hell happened, and cannot be
> > trusted.

Ooh! That's harsh.

> > The 2610, 2620, 2650, and 2660 were all released at the same time in
> > 2003. The 10 and 50 used Compact Flash cards for storage, and the 20 and
> > 60 used micro hard drives. They all included exactly the same maps.

He appears to be right. My memory paid a trick on me there.

> > Garmin DID change the map formats (or at least, the compression) which
> > did leave the 26x0 out in the cold, but that wasn't until like ... 2009?
> > 2010? Something like that.

The last maps they made for the 2610 were issued in 2009, which
means the data were something older. Where I live, they were getting
obsolete by 2011 and I left the Garmin in the car when I sold it.

Call it six years after the introduction of
> > the 26x0 models. That might be "a few years later" but the worst is that
> > you end up with a GPS that doesn't have current maps. And we've had the
> > discussion before about how rapidly roadmaps go stale if you've got
> > enough brains to occasionally read a sign...

Maybe they aren't doing much construction where you live, but
without a current map you can't find your way on or off the
Washington Beltway here in Virginia. If you're going to depend on
road signs why bother to have a GPS? Your friend is probably the
kind who reads the road map while barreling along the Interstate.

--
John Varela

[Your Name]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-u3KwKqnRKULI@localhost>, "John Varela"
<newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
<snip>

>
> > > The 2610, 2620, 2650, and 2660 were all released at the same time in
> > > 2003. The 10 and 50 used Compact Flash cards for storage, and the 20 and
> > > 60 used micro hard drives. They all included exactly the same maps.
>
> He appears to be right. My memory paid a trick on me there.

Maybe you should ask for your money back. ;-)
(It's "played a trick".)

[Frank]

You can see all the comments I got cross posting question in the Garmin
group. Someone pointed out that it could happen with my Nuvi 1450LMT
unit. About 4 editions of updated maps are put out annually. I've only
updated my unit once or twice in ~2 years as updates take all night and
a late night glitch in internet service can mess it up.
Still you can buy a new Garmin with lifetime maps and traffic for less
than $150. Mistake to buy the most expensive units or one built into
the car unless you have money to burn.

Maps don't do a lot of good when you're on the road by yourself in
traffic. I seldom use my gps but it is a nice security item to have
when in situations like this.

[John Varela]

On Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:55:40 UTC, Frank

TomTom also comes with forever maps now. I update regularly because
things do change around here.

> Maps don't do a lot of good when you're on the road by yourself in
> traffic. I seldom use my gps but it is a nice security item to have
> when in situations like this.

I use mine a lot. Not for driving to familiar places, of course, but
when going for example to a golf course that I visit once a year or
less, or to a restaurant that I've never been to before.

The GPS usually wants to send me on the road with the highest speed
limit when, what with lights and congestion, I know a better way.
Not necessarily faster, but better. So the way I often use it is to
turn it on and then ignore it until I have self-navigated to within
about a mile of the destination and then let it take me to the spot.

However, it has on occasion shown me a better route than I had found
for myself, so once in a while I do let the lady in the box direct
me.

--
John Varela