I know there was another thread where someone was replacing their head unit on a GT model with Bose but I replaced mine a week ago and figured I’d share.
2014 with Bose
New Head unit is Sony XAV-AX5000
Installed with the PAC unit from Crutchfield.
I didn’t take any pictures during the install because I was in a hurry to finish it before leaving for vacation. It’s a pretty straight forward install, though. The PAC harness plugs right into the car harness and then the headunit. I had a problem with my first PAC box where the unit wouldn’t power on and spent a while on the phone with Crutchfield before they finally sent me a new one. The new one worked right away but the backup camera did not. I had to bypass the power limiter, or whatever it’s called, that drops the voltage for the backup camera because the car was already dropping the voltage as needed when shifted into reverse. Once I did that the backup camera works perfectly.
The good:
In short, I love this thing. The bigger screen and simple interface are exactly what I was looking for and make the car feel more user friendly. The Bluetooth connects soooooooo much quicker than the stock unit and the capacitive screen looks awesome. The reflections can be a little hard on the eyes in certain lighting angle, even with my 5% tint, but I didn’t find it to be too much of an issue on my 7 hour road trip. Apple Car Play works way better than I even expected and I find myself using that more than anything else. It’s very intuitive although I do hate how limited it is. Apple maps is pretty good, all things considered, but once 3rd party maps are allowed in IOS 12, it will be a game changer. The stock rear view camera on the bigger screen is just a stretched image but I find it way more useful. The cross traffic alerts still work but you obviously don’t get the *Warning* across the bottom of the screen. And the sound is pretty awesome. I didn’t upgrade any speakers with the head unit, and both front door subs are previously blown and have been rigged to work properly, but this unit still manages to make them sound so much better. I think any aftermarket head unit will have a significant impact on the sound of the Bose system- which many people have suggested.
The bad:
I really don’t have much bad to say other than Android Auto doesn’t work consistently. The primary reason I wanted this unit was to have Waze when driving because I interstate travel a lot for work and I hate having to have my phone in my lap to run Waze. When it works, I absolutely love it. But I’ll get 10-15 minutes, if I’m lucky, and then it starts timing out and resetting. I have a personal iPhone so I usually run apple maps on the screen with Waze running in the background so I can still get the Waze alerts but Waze maps and guidance are so much better, too. But I have a Galaxy S7 for work that I have been trying to use with the above results. I’m on my 3rd different cable with the same results. Some googling has shown it’s a relatively common experience amongst Android users so I may be stuck waiting for the full IOS12 rollout and hope Waze supports Car Play early.
The other bad thing is that the Commander knob, and accompanying buttons, are not supported. At all. It becomes completely useless. I thought this would bother me more, and is part of the reason I’ve held off on changing the head unit, but I honestly don’t even notice most of the time. I programmed my steering wheel buttons to allow for track pausing and volume attenuation so everything is still at my finger tips without many reasons to touch the head unit other than to change apps in Car Play and Android Auto.
I know there’s a lot more I’m leaving out but if you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll answer as best I can. Here’s a quick picture of the unit installed, I can get better pictures or comparison to the stock unit if anyone wants, too.
2014 with Bose
New Head unit is Sony XAV-AX5000
Installed with the PAC unit from Crutchfield.
I didn’t take any pictures during the install because I was in a hurry to finish it before leaving for vacation. It’s a pretty straight forward install, though. The PAC harness plugs right into the car harness and then the headunit. I had a problem with my first PAC box where the unit wouldn’t power on and spent a while on the phone with Crutchfield before they finally sent me a new one. The new one worked right away but the backup camera did not. I had to bypass the power limiter, or whatever it’s called, that drops the voltage for the backup camera because the car was already dropping the voltage as needed when shifted into reverse. Once I did that the backup camera works perfectly.
The good:
In short, I love this thing. The bigger screen and simple interface are exactly what I was looking for and make the car feel more user friendly. The Bluetooth connects soooooooo much quicker than the stock unit and the capacitive screen looks awesome. The reflections can be a little hard on the eyes in certain lighting angle, even with my 5% tint, but I didn’t find it to be too much of an issue on my 7 hour road trip. Apple Car Play works way better than I even expected and I find myself using that more than anything else. It’s very intuitive although I do hate how limited it is. Apple maps is pretty good, all things considered, but once 3rd party maps are allowed in IOS 12, it will be a game changer. The stock rear view camera on the bigger screen is just a stretched image but I find it way more useful. The cross traffic alerts still work but you obviously don’t get the *Warning* across the bottom of the screen. And the sound is pretty awesome. I didn’t upgrade any speakers with the head unit, and both front door subs are previously blown and have been rigged to work properly, but this unit still manages to make them sound so much better. I think any aftermarket head unit will have a significant impact on the sound of the Bose system- which many people have suggested.
The bad:
I really don’t have much bad to say other than Android Auto doesn’t work consistently. The primary reason I wanted this unit was to have Waze when driving because I interstate travel a lot for work and I hate having to have my phone in my lap to run Waze. When it works, I absolutely love it. But I’ll get 10-15 minutes, if I’m lucky, and then it starts timing out and resetting. I have a personal iPhone so I usually run apple maps on the screen with Waze running in the background so I can still get the Waze alerts but Waze maps and guidance are so much better, too. But I have a Galaxy S7 for work that I have been trying to use with the above results. I’m on my 3rd different cable with the same results. Some googling has shown it’s a relatively common experience amongst Android users so I may be stuck waiting for the full IOS12 rollout and hope Waze supports Car Play early.
The other bad thing is that the Commander knob, and accompanying buttons, are not supported. At all. It becomes completely useless. I thought this would bother me more, and is part of the reason I’ve held off on changing the head unit, but I honestly don’t even notice most of the time. I programmed my steering wheel buttons to allow for track pausing and volume attenuation so everything is still at my finger tips without many reasons to touch the head unit other than to change apps in Car Play and Android Auto.
I know there’s a lot more I’m leaving out but if you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll answer as best I can. Here’s a quick picture of the unit installed, I can get better pictures or comparison to the stock unit if anyone wants, too.
