Hey, so I know there's another thread sort of dedicated to this, but this is just a simple question as to whether anyone has manufactured a replacement stereo for the Prius? I checked Crutchfield as it's probably the easiest reference, but found nothing. I would like to maintain the full touchscreen functionality along with steering remote capability. Has no one stepped up to make a deck for this car yet? Last thing I would like is to be able to plug in my MP3 player if it doesn't have MP3 playback right out of the box. Anyone know of a solution that doesn't involve modifying or losing any functions?

 

Haven't heard of any direct replacements, but if you really want the integration with the ability to have an MP3 player hooked up you might be able to get the 2006 stereo since it has that function built-in... However, you'd have to make sure it's 100% backwards compatible.

Most people just install a normal stereo in the available slot, and some of them should be able to communicate with the MFD since it does use an industry standard audio/visual control bus.

 

Before up and trashing the radio in the car right now, with a replacement that will not integrate with the MFD, look to upgrade the speakers first. Speakers are the first place you want to look for stereo upgrades not the head unit. Head units are nearly always more than sufficient for just about every vehicle application and auto manufacturers are working hard on making the head unit more integrated with the rest of the operation of the vehicle.

In the coming years it is going to be much harder to replace head units as they become more central to vehicle and driver operations. The days of replaceing a cheap 1 din standard radio with something from an aftermarket manufacturer is coming to and end.

As for integration with the onboard network, the network may be industry standard, but the communications over the network are going to be Toyota specific. Keep this in mind, the head unit for the Prius and the Solara are very close in nature. The Solara's head unit has some hard buttons that are on the radio unit and some hard buttons which do not live with the radio. The Prius radio has some hard buttons on the unit and then has soft buttons presented on the MFD. Essentially the same technolgoy with a slightly different user interface implementation. The comonality between the Prius radio and the Solara radio is also one of the biggest reasons that early satelite radio in Prius adopters were able to graft, with great ease, a Solara satelite tuner to the Prius radio.

 

I used www.crutchfield.com
followed the speaker replacement link and found a great set of 4, now Ill need an amp.
Stock radio is fine .. they will eventually make a plastic piece to fill in where the old one would go.

 

I'm not worried about the sound quality, so much as I am losing all the functionality of the stock radio. I just really figured that by now with so many of these cars on the road someone would have come up with something. I just hate using an FM transmitter for listening to my MP3 player.

BTW does anyone know if the Highlander Hybrid uses the same radio? I only ask because that would exponentially increase the number of similar radios to be replaced, along with the new Camry Hybrid I would only assume.