Would like to do this but do not want to take apart the dash. There is this concept asking for comments on.

If a hole is drilled in the back left side of the cubby for the wire, could a person put through hard wire, say a clothes hanger wire, inserting it into the hole and moving it along the left side of the dash until it could be felt from the back side. Then attaching the GPS power wire to the end of the rigid wire pulling it through until it came out from the back. Then would it be possible to take the GPS power wire to the fuse box under the dash and wire it up to a power connection that came on with the starting of the car.

Just really do not want to take apart the dash. No confidence I could put it back and look decent.

Thanks.

 

Sounds way more difficult than removing the 4 screws it takes to pull out the center console.

 

Four screws. Wow. Maybe you gotta link to a how-to pictorial. May reconsider doing it.

 

Please tell me this is a joke and that you are kidding.

--Spike

 

Take it to Best Buy. They will hardwire the GPS for $30.00.

 

After seeing best buy work on a few friends cars I would go with the coat hanger idea before going there.

"I don't in any way think the coat hanger is a good idea"

 

Is the $30 installation fee dependent upon purchasing the device at BB?

 

My clothes hanger idea is akin to running tv cable down a wall and fishing for it at the bottom of the wall. Have run plenty of those. Just thought it would be easier than the dash dis-assembly and re-assembly. But seeing videos of dis-assembly convinced me it is easier than I thought.

My next question is the cable to the Garmin Nuvi. Just wondering if i can take the supplied cigarette lighter power cord, cut off the cigarette plug-in, and connect direct to the fuse box to an appropriate hot connection. Only guessing the hot wire on the power cord will be red. I see hard wire kits on Ebay for this and inline exist what looks like a transformer. It has a connection for the GPS, the transformer looking black box, then the bare wires.

Any comments on this?

 

You wont be able to do that. Most cig lighter power cords have fuses and other voltage and amp limiters inside their housing. Open up yours and i'm sure you will see more than just two wires, but a circuit board.

You can go to radio shack and buy a female cig lighter and hardwire that into your car, hide it behind your center console, and plug your gps cig lighter power cord into that if you want.

That's what I did for my dash cam.

 

Here are two pics, of the two Garmin's I've used in my '08:

This is the 4.3" I've had for a few years:



This is the 5" I just installed a few weeks ago:



I used a Garmin self-adhesive mount, which you can buy separately from them, and used 2 nuts/bolts to fasten it to the back surface of the cubby. For power, I bought a USB power supply from eBay or maybe amazon, and modified it. The input side has a 12V lighter plug on one end, which I cut off, and hardwired the power supply to the lighter socket harness under the passenger side of the dash. The output side has 2 USB sockets, so I used a old camera cable I had to connect one of those sockets to the mini-USB on the Garmin. Power is automatically switched with the ignition. The 5" Garmin fits the cubby perfectly, with about 3/16" of clearance on all sides, so it looks almost OEM.

Here's something I found out about the Garmin, which I wasn't totally pleased with. My new unit has traffic reporting capabilities, but if you don't use the lighter adapter the unit came with, that feature doesn't work. There is an FM receiver built-in to the adapter and cable. I might modify that cable to work, at some future date, but I've gotten by all these years without traffic info, so I can live with it for now.

 

Nice. Which unit is it? Looks like a 5 inch. I have picked 2597lmt to buy. Wanted to get Bluetooth. I think I will install a female plug in the back of the cubby and use the power connection that comes with the unit. Thanks.

 

Nuvi 2557LMT, was just under $200 from Amazon. Here's a pic showing the whole waterfall:



I wanted to get the one with the glass screen, but the mount clipped to the top and bottom of the unit, rather than the back, so it was too big.

 

Very nice job.

 

This might not be something you want at all, but this is what I'm getting to use as my stereo AND my GPS system.

http://www.parrot.com/usa/products/a...asteroid-smart

It runs on Android and you can install apps on it just like a smart phone or tablet. There are tons of good GPS apps on the android market including google navigation which is what I'm using right now. There are also plenty of AM/FM apps available for download.

Maybe I'm just a bit of an android enthusiast, but this product definitely caught my attention when I saw it.


It'd go in your din slots and still leave your cubby open for whatever you'd like.

 

I've got a general question someone here may be able to answer. A dedicated GPS, like my Garmin, grabs its signals directly from the satellites, and it's accurate under good conditions to just several feet. There's actually a hidden feature on the Garmin which will even allow you to see which satellites the unit is locked on to, and see the positional accuracy.

So, my question is, are phone/tablet GPS apps as accurate, because they're computing position by other means, such as wifi and cell phone towers. What if you're in an area without such signals. such as some parts of mid-state Florida and on Hawai'i I've been to?

 

You mean when you don't have phone signal, will gps still work?

 

Exactly. Can't see how it would.

 

The GPS software built into smartphones isn't run off of your cellular connection or your data connection. The problem is, to locate an area, it does need a data connection; however, if you were to go on google maps or whatever you use while you have a data/wifi connection and save a location of your choice for use in offline mode, your device will still be able to navigate you to that destination because of the external gps link.


This app can be used to test the accuracy of your gps software.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....gpstest&hl=en

 

That's quite interesting. I didn't know phones and tablets had actual GPS antennas and used the satellites directly. So, it seems like a hybrid system, using the satellites for position, but the data connection for mapping info and directions. Thanks for that link.

 

That's how your carrier is still able to find your phone even if its cell connection and data/wifi connection has been disabled