They took my Prius today to install LoJack and an iPod jack. The dealership gave me a Toyota Corolla in exchange. Now, I realize that the model they gave me is probably a lower-end model, but it was horrible. I'd like to think that I'm pretty easy on the gas, but I nearly took out a guy in the parking lot trying to accelerate only slightly. Talk about a touchy gas pedal! Then, when I got it out on the road, not only was it noisy, but the engine was not as spunky as the Prius. I thought that was pretty strange, considering hybrids have a reputation for not being very responsive.

Anyway, I got my Prius back and I'm so happy! The car drives beautifully. It's quiet, responsive, and fun to drive. The iPod jack works pretty well through the Nav system as a second CD player. I'm slightly annoyed that it only displays the song name and not the album, or at least the artist. You also can't scroll through artists and albums like you can on the iPod, but you can scroll through and choose playlists. There is an override to manually operate the iPod in that manner, and it does work with the steering wheel controls to change songs and playlists. The sound is 100 times better than it was through the auxillary jack, too. They wired the cord to the upper glove compartment, but ran it along the hinge instead of through a hole that Toyota apparently put in the compartment for that specific purpose. I think I may have to take the dash apart to install a few extras I bought, so I may pop out the hole cover in the glove compartment and reroute the cord.

If anyone is interested in a similar solution, the system I had installed is called the SoundLinQ.

 

roughly how much did the system cost? Did you look at the harmon kardon system?

 

It was $340 installed. I didn't choose the system, the guy at the sound place did. The Harmon Kardon doesn't work through the Prius factory display, as far as I can tell. I just told the guy at the sound place that I wanted something that integrated well with the factory display and I wanted the steering wheel controls to work... and that's what I got!