Plouffe's 2004 Honda Civic has over a quarter million kilometers on it, but only one big problem.
It just won't die.
He'd love an excuse to upgrade it. He could get modern amenities like a backup cam or Android Auto.
But how do you justify replacing a car that still runs like the day it rolled off the lot?
I can't.
Windows?
Still clear. Heat? Still hot. Even the fuel economy is nearly identical to the current model,
which is 20 years newer.
What can he do?
How about jumping on to a trend that's been picking up steam and giving his older vehicle a little tech makeover?
By the time we're done, Plouffe's gonna have some big quality of life improvements,
and you guys are gonna have some great-
Hey! Hey! I'm filming here!
And you guys are gonna have some great ideas for adding features to your aging daily driver.
Or, for that matter, taking back features that manufacturers like GM have been cutting out of their vehicles.
Oh, and you're also gonna have this message from our sponsor.
Rocket Money. It's easy to lose track of all your paid subscriptions,
but Rocket Money makes it easy to identify and cancel your subscriptions so you can save money.
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First things first, we've got to get this old stock receiver out of here.
We're gonna want to disconnect the battery.
Then, we picked up some inexpensive trim removal tools,
and these should help ensure that we don't cause any damage to the console beyond what the previous owner did.
Now, every car is a little different, but for this one,
we've got to remove all this trim to get at a couple of hidden screws underneath.
By the way, you can check out the new Noctua edition of the LTT screwdriver at lttstore.com.
All of this has got to come off.
AC controls, stereo, and the little compartment here, plus all of the panel trim around the outside.
But what is wrong with your current head unit?
I mean, it plays compact discs.
Yeah, you know, I mean, aside from the fact that I got to use an FM transmitter, play songs off my phone,
the clock doesn't work, doesn't keep time properly.
I'm throwing Google Maps on my phone in the cup holder.
Let me put it this way.
I live in Surrey.
It takes 30 seconds to break into this car, and it's still here.
To solve all of that, or at least the not living in Surrey parts of it,
Plouffe went with this Sony XAV-AX6000.
Most importantly, it fits in the car.
But other than that, it's got physical buttons, easy universal backup cam hookup, Android Auto, of course,
but most importantly, this is one of the more premium ones with Wi-Fi,
so he doesn't need to plug his phone in every time he jumps in the car.
And if someone else wants to connect, it's got a USB-C port as well.
You just run out of here to... somewhere.
Now, there are a ton of other options out there, like this Boss Audio BE920W CPA
that have similar features and, for the most part, good reviews.
But given that Plouffe was willing to offer up his chariot as a testbed for all this,
I agreed we should kit him out with something nice.
And then, Sony was a bro and sent it over for us anyway, so thanks, guys.
There were also just a few concerning comments on the Boss unit, so take all of that for what it is.
Warranties do exist, but this isn't really the kind of project that you want to do twice if you can avoid it.
After ripping everything out, we attach our new unit to the stereo mount by screwing it in,
then put on a new doubled-in fascia cover.
Grab a compatible wiring harness and solder everything together while checking your wiring diagram.
Once you're done, plug it in and do a test run.
Big moment, guys.
Here we go.
It's plugged in?
We'll get to this in a moment.
Yep, she's in.
Okay.
Hey, there we go.
Hey, XAV, AX6000, pairing.
Okay, allow access to contacts?
Yeah, because I'm going to use this for, like, phone calls and everything.
To continue, select Android Auto on your car screen.
Android Auto, here we go.
Cool.
Dude, this is awesome.
I know, look, Google Maps works, like, right away.
I don't have to put my phone down here anymore.
Freaking eh, man.
Like, how does everyone not just do this?
I mean, this particular unit, a little on the pricier side, but, like, here, check this out, guys.
There's still more stuff for us to do.
Where'd that AV cable I had before go?
Oh, you're sitting on it.
Perfect.
Check this out.
It's surprisingly simple compared to the last time I looked into head units anyway.
We just got the harness, okay?
And then you just, what?
There's basically everything.
And then there's audio and, look at that, simple composite video in for your camera.
If you can't connect through Bluetooth or whatever, it's still got that USB-C port back here somewhere.
Freaking eh.
Yeah.
It's not, you know, we'll have to route it somewhere if I want to actually use it.
Whatever, put it through the glove box, put it down here.
Yeah, who cares?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, man, what an upgrade.
Yeah, it's great.
Yeah, it works great.
Okay, you got to play music.
Hold on, what are you, look at, look at this guy using his phone like a flip.
Oh, yeah, what?
I can actually just use my phone.
What are you even doing, bud?
Crazy, I'm not used to it anymore.
See?
Spotify.
Okay, fine.
That probably has DSP and stuff in it.
Alex, the fact that this plays over Bluetooth at all is a W for us.
Okay, quick, turn that off before we get DMCA'd.
Oh, man.
You could have phantom imaging.
Yeah, you can probably do, like, out of phase in the rear.
Get some stereo, or like surround sound.
This guy with the level ups.
He has a touchscreen now.
Flawless friggin' victory.
F***ing works.
Hardware buttons, there's your volume right there.
Huge point for me, I do not want to rely strictly on touchscreen.
Like, the backup cam and the dash camera are going to be great.
Yeah.
But this alone is, like, totally worth it.
Honestly, I want to do this in my Odyssey now.
Yeah.
That's the one thing about that van that I'm just like, oh, this sucks.
Like, I have one of those dash-mounted things for my phone, and I hate it.
I hate them, because they look bad, and it's annoying, and you got to use your phone battery.
You got to put your phone up there, and then better chance of getting a ticket, too, around here anyway.
They see you, like, touching something up there.
You're using your phone.
Whereas you touch your dash, whatever, that's allowed because...
That's in my car.
Sure.
Do a little bit of an EQ on the rears from 200 Hertz to about 7,000 Hertz, and then you can get, like, much better spatial stuff.
This is so far beyond what our goals for this project were, but sure.
Heck yeah.
I mean...
Maybe we do another video when we swap the speakers.
Hey.
What other video?
We only really asked for two things out of our backup camera.
Universal compatibility, so that it would work with our universal head unit,
and a decent camera at a reasonable price.
Okay, that's three things.
But the Kenwood CMOS 230 does all of them.
Once again, there are a lot of other options out there.
Oh, yeah.
More expensive.
Less expensive.
Including a bunch of all-in-one solutions that come with their own little monitor that you attach to your dash or your rear-view mirror.
And, I mean, man, if you want to gamble a little, like...
Yeah.
What do you pay for something with a decent amount of reviews on Amazon?
Like 60 bucks, maybe $80.
This Pixelman unit.
Okay, 4.4 stars, over 600 reviews.
But then we started reading the one-star comments, and decided to stick with the car audio brands that we know and trust.
I guess we'll need the extension to get this installed.
Yeah, the pretty funny thing is all the pictures on here are black and white.
But then it's got some disclaimers that are like,
Don't worry.
This camera allows full-color images, but carton image showing is black and white.
You know what's hilarious?
Is it's a color package.
Is it though?
Look, there's blue.
Why would they?
Why didn't they just print the whole thing in black and white at this point?
Okay, there's a couple factors.
This is only two-color printing, whereas full-color printing would have been a lot more, okay I get it
I get it, I get it.
Let's just...
Look, they put the money into the product, okay?
I guess we'll find out.
If I wanted the lowest possible maintenance...
Right under there.
Yeah, I think that's pretty typical.
That's also a really easy spot to punch through as well.
I guess we need a hole then.
Yeah, well, we have a drill.
You love punching holes through things.
I don't mind it.
Before anyone complains, you can't find out anything about people from their license plates.
We're not going to bother blurring it in this video.
It's a lot of work.
Yeah, I don't really give a...
Some places it matters, here it doesn't.
Really?
Yeah.
Where does it matter?
There's places where by license plate, there's like public registries and you can just like look up stuff about people or something.
Yeah, that's not a thing here.
So it's fine.
Yeah.
Hey, easy.
Look at that.
Okay.
Chipped like a tiny bit there, but I don't care about that.
That's fine.
Okay.
There's my finger.
That's fine.
Whatever.
We might have to go one step larger.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's definitely a big enough hole now.
Yeah, that's good.
Okay.
Nice.
All right.
Now, we just have to, you know, run it all the way to the front and hide it under some carpet.
I can get into car stuff.
Yeah, we're good to go.
I mean, they're just rolling computers at this point.
After punching that hole, we're going to feed our wire through and then attach it to the extension.
Make sure when you run the cable, you leave some slack for opening and closing the trunk, depending on how it's mounted.
We've zip tied it to these rails and then ran it through the back seats, along the sides and out to the center console.
Take the video cable and go up through the back to the head unit.
And then for power, we're just soldering it onto our 12-volt accessory, since I don't need a cigarette lighter.
With more time, you could definitely do a bit of a cleaner job.
But after throwing some gaff tape over it, I'm honestly pretty happy with how it turned out.
We have camera.
It does still appear to be upside down.
Okay, rear cam.
Is there, like, settings for rear cam?
I don't see any.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Rear camera view normal.
Hold on.
Flip.
Boom.
Got him.
We will have to do no such thing.
Wait, what?
It still looks flipped.
Wait, did you flip it already, Justin?
No, I did not.
Okay, it might be flipped instead of...
Oh, well, hold on.
Hold on.
Maybe...
Okay, well, what...
I don't know.
It's fine.
We'll flip it physically.
It's okay.
Yeah, I think it's flipping it the horizontal way.
Now things are about to get really interesting.
We really liked Viofo's offerings in our dash cam review video a little while back.
And like Sony, they were down to send Plouffe their new 4K A229 Pro.
An all-in-one model with front, interior, and rear monitoring.
That would have been great for a car a little newer than this one.
But unfortunately, it's not compatible with our receiver that we needed to add Android Auto to this car.
So why am I still holding it?
Because it's got what is arguably the best sensor on the market.
The Sony Starvis IMX678.
Guys, I'm talking HDR, better low-light image quality with lower noise, 4K capture.
I mean, at that point, who cares if we can't monitor the feed from the head unit?
He's only going to need this thing in the event of an accident anyway.
So we're just going to put the 1440p rear camera aside.
And if you guys are looking for something similar, the A229 Pro is available in a single channel configuration as well.
And if our test footage is anything to go by, it looks great.
To power the dash cam, we grabbed an Add-A-Circuit fuse tap and tapped into my non-existent heated seats in the cabin fuse box.
Then ran our wire up through the center console, out the glove box, then along the sides of the windshield to the camera.
I was off-site shooting something else for a little bit.
They've got the dash cam installed. Very elegant wiring, guys.
I love it. What did this used to be?
It was just a blank board.
Oh, okay. How convenient.
And wow, that is a nice long USB-C cable.
Get all the way to the back seat with that, boy.
I guess I assume the intention in the longer term would be to have kind of a little grommet here or like a little plate or something like that.
You've got a female USB-C. Frickin' love this.
All that remains now is to get this dash cam mounted.
Get the microSD in there. Supports up to 512 gigs.
I can't get this VHB backing off. It keeps...
No, it's got this. It's got this. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, there we go. Okay.
Okay.
Now, there's a minor thing.
Yeah, right here.
Flip. Well, no, no, no, no, no.
Right there.
Flip the cable. Flip the cable.
Oh, yeah.
Because we're going to go up here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then hide it up there.
Later, later, later.
Can I just shout out USB-C?
Oh, that's great.
You know?
Oh, yeah.
Reversible.
No problem.
That's great.
Just can't talk enough about how much I love USB-C.
Okay.
Oh.
How's that feel?
Sure.
We feeling that?
Sure.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
There we go.
Okay, turn the...
It's as straight as your trio barcode was.
Wow, thanks.
Nice.
Do we get to try it now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You get to drive it.
Turn it on.
Everything should work.
Look, I routed the...
Well, we should probably close the hood.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
What the hell?
Don't do...
Don't worry about it.
I think I got it reversed.
Nope.
All right, I give up.
Red light there.
We got power.
Hey, dash cam's alive.
Oh, it would have been kind of nice to be able to see that screen at all.
Ah, it's okay.
I really don't need it.
I only ever need it when I'm getting footage from it.
Hey, look at that.
You know what's funny is this is more usable than the backup cam on my stupid...
It's pretty good, right?
Have you seen the backup cam on the...
No, I haven't.
Is it really bad?
It's terrible.
It's terrible?
It's like unusable.
You know what?
That's not that much work.
No.
Hey, look at that.
Look at that.
We're at the office.
I know.
I used it to drive home last night.
Let's use a...
Linus Media Group.
Yeah, okay.
Wow.
Let's go to work, boys.
Where's volume control?
So, kind of.
That's for music.
The only thing with Android Auto and Google is you've got to go in.
Oh, that's right.
Then you go, play test sound, adjust volume.
Use your car's volume.
Oh, yeah, there we go.
Already better, yeah.
Nice.
Easy as that.
Yeah, yeah, we're on.
I already changed like wallpapers and stuff.
I've got the USB and the HDMI coming out of like right here.
What's HDMI for?
Whatever I want.
Play Crab Rave.
That worked really well, actually, because right now we should just have the microphone kind of way down here.
We're going to plug...
It's plugged in, but we've got to feed it up to over here or something like that is where Alex recommended it, like up above the rear view.
Hey, there we go.
Nice.
The system works.
It's not just GM taking Android Auto away.
Some car companies don't have it at all.
Yeah, which is horrible.
That's actually one of the big reasons that I wasn't even considering a Tesla when I got my car, right?
You can't tell me that I'm going to have to rely on you for software updates.
I don't care if you're a new kind of automaker.
I don't trust automakers.
Whoa, what am I doing?
What am I doing?
Oh, yeah.
It's actually really good quality.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, let's not hit this pole.
You can keep going.
That's probably about it.
Yeah, pretty good.
Hey, hey, not bad, right?
You should see my piece of **** one.
Here, come check this out.
Seriously, Porsche, fix this.
Well, how am I supposed to use this?
What is this?
That's tight.
Yeah, look out the back of there.
That's not tight.
No, that's...
Yeah, that looks like I'm going to freaking hit it.
It does.
You're actually quite far away from it.
I can't use this.
That's way further than I thought.
They have another view.
That's kind of better.
But I have to press that every time, and there's no guidelines anymore.
No guidelines once you take the fish eye away?
Oh, my God.
What the ****, Porsche?
The one on my Odyssey is better.
The one on the Volt is perfect.
Go buy a Chevy Volt, okay?
And fix your ****.
That was terrifying.
Yeah.
Just looking at that like...
I know, right?
If you guys are interested in anything that we used or mentioned today,
as always, we're going to have all of it linked down below.
But I got to say, bottom line...
It wasn't that bad.
No.
I mean, sure, some of the folks here are more experienced,
but these were very simple upgrades that result in a major, major difference in quality of life for an older vehicle.
And if you think you're going to be driving it for another 5 or 10 years, which like...
Probably.
Basically.
Like...
I got to say, it's looking pretty worth it.
And if the current car software landscape keeps changing over the next 5 or 10 years,
and we see more folks like GM abandon support for Android Auto and CarPlay,
and we might even see this become a viable alternative to keeping your up-to-date stuff.
You might be downgrading.
Hey, I don't know.
Who knows?
Maybe if this video does really well, we'll do some other stuff too.
Power locks, power windows, because I've got the very base model.
Remote start.
We'd need a sponsor, though.
Yeah, someone like...
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If you guys enjoyed this video, make sure to check out the dash cam roundup that we did a while back.
You might want to consider something with the new Starvis 2 sensor, though, if you have the budget for it, but there's some really great options in there.