I want to keep my bose speakers, but use a different amp and head unit. Also would I have to do any rewiring, or could I pretty much just remove the stock amp and put the new one in its location and just plug everything in? Kind of a noob to car audio. If it's complicated, I'll probably just have a professional installer do it.

 

It's not that it's hard, but you do need basic install knowledge as well as the tools. To do a quality job you need tools like soldering iron and/or crimper, wire stripper, all sorts of various connectors, wire loom, heat shrink, etc. If you don't have those you might as well let an installer do the job. You will spend almost as much on tools/parts as you would paying someone to do it.

Anyway, I am not 100% on swapping out an amp but I do know that you can easily replace the H/U with an aftermarket. It is not just a plug and play though. Aftermarket H/Us are smaller than the OEM Bose so you will need a dash kit (by Metra) to make it work. Then you need a OEM wire harness (also by Metra or Schosche). You wire the new H/U to the wire harness and then just plug that into where the Bose plugged in. You can buy those two items from the same place where you buy the H/U or somewhere like Amazon.com, eBay or Crutchfield.com.

Crutchfield is not the cheapest, but when you buy from them they offer great phone tech support and can help if you get into a jam.

And yes you can keep the OEM Bose speakers. Personally I would not buy a better amp just to push crappy speakers. I would spend that money on some better quality front speakers and let your aftermarket H/U push them.

Hope this gets you started. Good luck.

 

I want to get new speakers sometime too, but I want to get this done first. I think I may have one of the recalled amps (I own an 03, and the sound is really muddy) so instead of paying for another crappy bose amp at the dealership since it's no longer under warranty, I thought I'd just go with a real amp and see how it sounded.

 

I installed the Pioneer Avic D3, I bought it from Crutchfield so it came with plug n' play
adapters to retain the OEM amp and speakers. I bypassed the park lock so it will
play DVD's while driving---the wife likes that...

I mounted the Bluetooth and Nav/Sat module under the storage compartment behind
the pass seat. I use a Kuda made base to mount my iPod Touch. The Kuda base is
fiberglass molded to the center console and wrapped in leather (looks like the steering wheel leather) so it appears as a natural extension of the car. I mounted the Navi GPS antenna under the windshield and the Sat Radio GPS antenna on the hatch.

Over all, came out very nice.