I don’t have any kind of stereo in my car and haven’t for several years. This is primarily because my car has been broken into 4 times in as many years. The first 2 times, there was a stereo (which got stolen), but after that 2nd break-in, I never bothered to replace it.
I don’t mind not having a car stereo and enjoy the quiet/ambient road noise most of the time. But there are a few times where a radio would be nice–like this coming New Year’s when we’re driving my car down to Pasadena (radio’s always nice for a road trip).
So she’s been looking for a car stereo for my '93 Honda Civic. Since I don’t need a car stereo, I’ve set down one basic stipulation: it needs to be a pull-out model. This is because I want to be able to drive without it most of the time, but have the option to pop it in when I’m in the (albeit infrequent) mood. This is mostly for practical reasons: if my car has a big empty hole in the dash, it’s less likely to be messed with.
I don’t want a removable faceplate, since that still means there’s a component in my car that someone can steal (and has, in the past). I also know that I’m better off not listening to a car stereo regularly because I tend to play things too loudly and I already have a bit of a problem hearing. I like the idea of being able to listen to music or NPR on rare occasions, and feel that having a pull-out will allow me to do this without constantly worrying about it getting stolen.
Essentially, I’m fine with not having one, but she really wants to give one to me. So if I get one, it needs to be on those simple terms. The problem is that she is having a hard time finding any like that. She’s been to the Circuit City & Best Buy websites (and probably more at this point) and can’t find much of anything; she’s guessing maybe stereo manufacturers don’t do as many pull-out models now. She just started her vacation today (I’m still working this week), and I would rather have her spend her valuable time relaxing around the house instead of spending hours on the internet finding me this gift (and she’ll do it; she can be a little obsessive that way).
I gotta be honest, I haven’t seen a pull-out stereo in a coon’s age. You’re facing an uphill battle finding one.
Possible alternative: have you considered something like a Kenwood model with their “mask” feature? When the ignition is turned off, the faceplate rotates around and displays a blank back panel, meaning that a casual observer will just see a blank, flat dash when looking into your car. Also, you can manually engage the faceplate-flipping motor, so you can hide the radio from yourself if you want to enjoy the silence. To get it back, you touch a secret spot on the flat black panel.
I had a “mask” radio for years (before a collision messed it up something fierce), and I felt pretty at peace with the blank look it presented.
I can’t imagine anyone stealing a factory radio from a 93 civic today, but then I never imagined someone would steal a faceless radio either. You could probably get an original factory radio on e-bay (with just a cassette player) and use the radio and/or an MP3 player for music. I’ve never seen a radio you completely pull out of the car.
I’d have her call the people at crutchfield.com to see if they have anything. There’s no way for me to search on it, but they might have one in stock.
Otherwise, e-bay looks to be a good bet, I found several of them listed. This was more common back in your car’s original era, but less so since they came up with the idea of removable faceplates.
Do you have a need for everyone in the car to be listening? Or just you? If it’s just you then why not just get an iPod or similar device with a radio? Somewhat less convenient but you can take it with you. That’s what I did when I had a car.
Like others have said, I don’t think your going to find a yank-out deck on the market anymore.
Your best going with a basic $100 removable faceplate model.
Since you’ve also mentioned that a couple of your decks have been stolen keep this in mind when having it installed. If the wires have been cut / dash damaged / missing wire harness you’re going to pay quite a bit for an installation.
Install dash kit $25, wire harness $20, antenna adaptor $15, car rewire $$.
I had a pull-out radio in a 1990 Civic I used to own. Seemed like a good idea at first, but after the fifth or sixth time I reinserted it into the dash, one of the contacts got slightly bent, and one channel (the right I think) would intermittently cut out. For a while I could get it to work by pressing a little harder on the top right side of the front panel, but every time I’d hit a bump, it would go out again. The place that installed it tried to fix it, but the problem never went away.
Pull-out radio/cassette players were a bad, bad idea. Problems like mine were common, according to the audio store that tried to fix it (an Alpine unit, by the way), and that’s why the industry went to removable front panels.
Ten years later when the radio was finally stolen out of the car, I didn’t miss it at all.
I have never heard of this, but it sounds pretty cool and the most practical solution to the problem. How much does something like this cost, and do you have any recs for a name brand that would be a good place to start searching?
My wife mentioned an I-Pod (we don’t have one), but unless I’ve got a stereo setup already, the only way I can listen to it in the car is on headphones, right? This strikes me as incredibly dangerous and irresponsible, and I can’t imagine anyone might think this is a good idea. Plus, do I-pods have radio tuners?
I guess the pull out thing isn’t too practical (for a variety of reasons); given that I don’t know how many years the car actually has (it’s at 155K miles), I don’t want her to invest in something too fancy unless it’s something I can possibly transplant later into another vehicle, if necessary.
As long as you’re not using expensive noise cancelling headphones, how is it more dangerous than listening to the radio? It’s not as if you can’t hear other cars or children under your wheels with headphones on, if you can’t then turn the volume down.
I guess your only option would be a removable faceplate type stereo then. Perhaps it might be possible to buy a very old, beaten up model that would look very unattractive to thieves?
How about a boombox placed on the passenger seat? Doesn’t get more removable than that. Add a cheap power inverter if you don’t want to bother with batteries.
