Wednesday 13th January 2016

CarPlay: OE versus aftermarket

Might the aftermarket be the better place to invest your infotainment budget? Old car tech makeover says possibly so

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It's with no little relief I see Mercedes has integrated the infotainment screen into the dash for the new E-Class, if only for the quiet life. We've reviewed new Mercs with twin-turbo V8s but the firm's damned faux tablet display seems to have caused greater excitement among PHers. 

Which does at least underline how important this stuff is for day to day driving. Y'know, when not actually cornering on the door handles, sideways in clouds of tyre smoke or setting new Nurburgring lap records. 

Hopping between lots of different press cars offers insight on which manufacturers do this well and which don't. And how cruelly the rapid obsolescence of in-car tech dates otherwise brand new vehicles. Witness the pixellated, sluggish touchscreen in the PH Fleet RangeRover Sport SVR for example. The car is fresh in the market but its otherwise stylish and beautifully appointed cabin is let down by a system that, by manufacturer development cycles, would have been bang up to date when signed off for production. JLR is investing heavily in app-driven InControl and other systems but developing infotainment hardware for cars costs millions, takes time and, by its nature, will always be lagging behind the consumer tech sector. 

Dan gets run through the options

Old before your time
Something highlighted even more dramatically when browsing the kind of cars many of us lust over in the PH classifieds. I recently took a ride in an E46 M3 and was shocked at the comedic postage stamp sized 'Business Nav' screen. But back in the day the original owner would have been convinced by his dealer the £1,480 option price had to be paid in the name of having the latest tech and protecting residuals. Yet if I was in the market now and had two identical M3s to choose between I'd go for the one without the obsolete factory nav. Still though, dealer margins on new cars are still swelled by convincing us we need to tick the options boxes for factory fit in-car tech; can the aftermarket serve the same demand for owners and buyers of older cars too? 

Full disclosure time; yes, Halfords fitted an expensive head unit to my 10-year-old Subaru Forester, originally inspired by promotion of the growing popularity of retrofit DAB, CarPlay and other tech. As you're no doubt aware, Halfords makes noise about its ability to fit this kit to your car, as well as sell it to you. Only fair we offered them a proper challenge then. One in the shape of a freshly imported JDM Subaru with its head unit still lost in downtown Tokyo. What horrors lurked behind the dashboard? I wasn't man enough to explore myself. 

Sebastian gets to work

For the scrapheap
Whoever owned my Subaru in Japan clearly put a lot of money into the system installed in the car too. A flip front, double-DIN nav unit with touchscreen, MiniDisc changer and lots of other tech hidden behind the Japanese language controls, it must have cost a few yen. But, 10 years on and on the other side of the world, is now fit for little more than the bin.  

I'm not the world's biggest in-car tech fiend but there were certain basics I wanted, the best route to the docks in Tokyo not among them. A 6Music addict I needed DAB but I'm a bit old-school too and like physical music on these antiquated things known as 'compact discs'. The household uses Apple phones so CarPlay would offer direct connection to Google Maps and other apps, a fall-back of built-in nav also appealing.  

A couple of Pioneer options on Halfords' website seemed to tick the boxes but some quirks of the aftermarket quickly became apparent. For £329 you can have double DIN, CarPlay compatibility and a slick looking touchscreen. But no CD slot. Or, bizarrely, DAB. Spend£499 and you get the former but still no DAB, this only available on an older unit. Which didn't have CarPlay. Seems utterly bizarre you can buy a new head unit that doesn't feature DAB these days but there you go.

And this is a five out of 10 for difficulty!

Taken to the logical conclusion the only one with all the features I wanted cost £799, this basically the updated version of the £1,012 Pioneer unit Subaru installs as the dealer fit nav option to the WRX STI l ran as a long-termer. That's a lot of money to throw at the dashboard of a 10-year-old car - easily a tenth of the value of the whole car in many cases. 

But it can be even more expensive on a new car. By way of example VW charges £750 for Discover Navigation on a Golf R or £1,765 for the all-singing, all dancing Discover Navigation Pro. The attraction of OE is, of course, integration with the car's interior and systems. In the case of an older car there's also the fear a jazzy new head unit can somewhat jar with an older interior and look unpleasantly incongruous.

Culture clash
So as Halfords man Sebastian set about the Forester's interior I was a little concerned about how it would all match up. The aftermarket install by the Japanese owner was a neat job but prompted some teeth sucking and "never seen anything like this before!" from him. But the adaptor cable plugged straight in, a couple of USB inputs and an aux cable were neatly plumbed into the storage binnacle and within a couple of hours it was job done. From my perspective it looked like a pretty involved job but Sebastian didn't seem overly concerned. "Five out of 10," he reckoned when asked where it sat on a scale of complexity. "Maybe six out of 10," he decided, after battling the A-pillar trim to install the DAB aerial.  

All fitted, now time to test it!

All back together I have to say the Pioneer looks better integrated into the Forester's interior than I'd expected. And though only a generation on from the clunky one in the WRX STI is the equal of any current OE system I've used, with slick graphics and a snappy interface. Early days yet but I'm looking forward to exploring its features in greater depth. 

Halfords is a dominant player in the market too; clearly for a more involved or tailored installation skilled independent specialists may offer more options. And I brace myself for the scorn of the many keen DIYers among the PH community. But for a mainstream, quick-fix operation the fitting was efficient, tidy and thorough and I'll admit to expectations being exceeded. 

A better way of enjoying the latest tech than hitting the options list on a new car? I'll report back... 

[Sources: M3Cutters]

 

[PHMatt]

I've had an E46 for 5 1/2 years with the Mk4 Satnav, and, as long as it's up to date (new disc in the boot for maps) it's perfect and much more convenient that having a smaller one stuck on the windscreen competing with the HK sound system (all OEM)

I think aftermarket stuff has so many problems. In my younger days I had about 2k of stuff wedged in a Clio. The speakers all used to pop regularly requiring replacement. You could never get it sounding how you wanted it, people used to want your stuff more than you did and and, worse of all, aftermarket stuff looks so chavvy!

This
http://thumbsnap.com/sc/rJcw8dy3.jpg

Still looks miles better than this

http://simplicity.elitecaraudio.org/abe1.JPG

With a tom tom stuck in the window.

[PHMatt]

Another problem with aftermarket stuff is it dates faster than OEM stuff just because the OEM is designed to fit/blend in with the cars interior.

The car makers also sell these parts for years as well. If I had a single speaker go pear shaped I can still go into BMW and get one or find one at a scrap yard or Ebay.

If I spent a grand a PioKenPine unit it would be obsolete and non existent in a year.