H5

Sounds like a great road trip!

Looks great, nice finish on the black.

Welcome to the club There is little real world difference between the pre 06 and post 06 cars. There is a bit more oomph with the 313ps engines but probably not enough to justify the extra cash unless the newer car is an important thing for you.

The main principle to remember with ICE, is the addage that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. For a few hundred £, my recommendation would be the following.... Alpine head unit - the best sounding CD players and RDS tuners for in car applications that sensible money can buy. Great user interfaces and decent styling. Oh, and they last for years..... To do what you want, something like this as a head unit - http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine- ... -6422.html And this cable - http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine- ... -5637.html Will give you radio, CD and iPod. Alpine units use their own software to decode the iTunes so it sounds a bit better too. Still not CD quality, but OK. Speakers could be run off this head unit. Not ideal but they could be. If you want sub bass (which I recommend) then I would go this route.... Amp - http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/audio-g4500-p-7290.html Sub - http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/audio-8 ... -7283.html The little JL sub will fit in a small box and will really enhance the low end, letting the speakers do the job of reproducing the other instruments and vocals. And for those speakers - http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/audio-e ... -7297.html Great sounding speakers. Then with some cabling (£50) and Dynamat (£50) you'd have a sound you'd love and you can get just how you want. There's no rear speakers here, you can run a pair off the headunit at really low volume. The sound should be infront of you, not booming from behind so all you need is a little bit of rear fill. Total for this:- Headunit and iPod cable - £170 Amp - £270 Sub - £70 Speakers - £180 Cabling & soundproofing - £100 Sub box - (est. £75) Total - £865 If you dropped the sub and amp for now, that's £525. Does that kind of help??

Just got mine back from it's P2 at KJM Reading. I supplied my own oil, they got to a reasonable (for the gold mine south) £224 inclusive. Decent inspection of the car before taking it in, they only did 5 miles in it (as opposed to the 11-15 others seemed to do!) and they even rang me to let me know they found the small crack in one of my side skirts. Only negative was the sticky white finger prints on the boot, bonnet and doors. Since they DIDN'T wash the car and greased my rear drop links, overall I'd say I'm happy.

Not used an Alpine double DIN before so cannot confirm or deny, sorry.

Good to hear there are still proper audio companies going out there. Support them if you can, these guys are highly skilled electricians / carpenters / craftsmen to do what they do in cars. It's a shame to see the places closing....

1. H5 +1 - Paid 2. Chesterfield +1 - Paid 3. Chris`I +1 - Paid 4. sunset350z +1 - Paid 5. MrLizard - TO PAY 6. shire350z +1 - Paid 7. Ian +1 - Paid 8. Lexx - TO PAY 9. M350ZB - TO PAY 10. Nurrish - Paid 11. IanS16 - Paid 12. Mitchell +1 - Paid 13. Darren-B - Paid 14. R800NER +1 - Paid 15. Eraserhead - TO PAY 16. Marzman - Paid 17. martek - TO PAY 18. the choo - TO PAY 19. Patto (TBC) - TO PAY 20. rich5259 +1 - Paid (please PM me your name, reg no. and phone number - thx) 21. Mick43 - TO PAY 22. Linkster +1 - Paid Can those of you still to pay do so ASAP please, and if you can make it update the list. Thanks

No, I didn't go for it yesterday. The car is in for it's service today so when I get it back I might have a go this evening.....

Not much to drop IMO.

Put a well written ad on Pistonheads mate and I think you'll find you get a good whack more than the trade......

Get the wheel alignment done, and the wheels balanced and all should be fine.

Switching it off will improve the sound overall

Very impressive Alex, well done on sticking with it!

Nice one

Assuming the only other tools needed are a plug socket?

Welcome to the club

Why can't they even get the basics right???

Welcome to the club

An impressive amount of work, but not all that well thought out!

I've had a quick search and thinking of doing something worthwhile this afternoon....

Welcome to the club

Welcome to the club

Will do, how much do they charge for minor work? Anybody had experience with them? Is it likely to be over £100 for a few small finger nail dings to a door?[/quote It varies tbh. Around here (Thames Valley) it's about £35 a panel. That said, it depends on how bad that panel is and how long it takes them. Wayne on here had one done and it was a bit more than that for just the one dent. So it shouldn't be more than £100 unless it's been pebble dashed.......