XTerra Upgrade

I've kept my 2008 Nissan XTerra Off Road pretty much stock. It's as capable off-road as I'll ever need so I've never been tempted by the long list of dirt toys like those from ShrockWorks (though I'd be lying if I said a winch bumper hasn't tempted me; there's been many a time I would have liked to have one).

I also got my truck with pretty much every factory installed option. The Rockford Fosgate head unit, amp, speakers, and sub, while not perfect, is good enough that I was never tempted to upgrade anything. iPod integration is so cumbersome as to be pointless without a passenger to do it, but at least it's there (and addressing that would require a new head unit).

The one thing that has bugged me though is the lack of a factory installed nav unit. I'm quite happy with my little Garmin Nuvi 260w, but I'm not found of the ugly window mount and the power cord with constantly gets tangled and obscures the head unit. I am also paranoid about leaving it in the cradle while I leave the truck; it's a tempting smash-and-grab item.

Now you see me.

Now you don't.

While researching new nav head units I discovered that Nissan offers a dealer installed GPS housing. It's nothing very fancy, just a flip-up clam shell holder for a Garmin 7xx series. The nice part is that it's (obviously) a lot cheaper than something like this. And given my disinclination to mess with the rest of the system, it was a no-brainer. Finding the old style model (for the 2005-2008 dash) proved quite difficult though. I finally found one at mynismo.com.

Installation took about 1 hour, though it would take significantly less if you already know your way under the dash. The wiring harness included a tap for the head unit's power wire, which was nice, but the tap itself is very fragile and dropping it into the bowels of the dash is a real possibility.

My old Nuvi doesn't work with the cradle so I needed to pick up a new Nuvi 765T. Haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet, but I applaud Garmin for not changing the UI too much simply to give the appearance of improvement.

The only real problem in the install was that when I disconnected the battery, the VDC system "resets" (i.e. is disabled). The reset procedure is to simply drive straight for a while over 10 m.p.h., but so far that hasn't worked. I have to give Nissan an F on that one, a vehicle like this desperately needs stability control, and making the reset procedure require driving seems an odd choice.