Sony AX100 in a Honda Element: Metra Stole My Pants

I put a Sony AX100 in my Element a couple weeks ago, and found a couple of things related to the install to be particularly annoying. Unlike regular annoying stuff, however, it's actually a result of planning. This experience has only confirmed my belief that the one true way to install any car part is to forsake all installation accessories and simply see what you can find in your garage. Anyway, here's what I done.

The main thing is that Metra “Element” kit is totally useless for the AX100. This is the kit places like Amazon and Crutchfield suggest fit the Honda and Sony perfectly. Brittle plastic mounts that put the thing way too far back in the dash, and the faceplate doesn’t fit the Sony. Like, genuinely doesn't fit at all. There is no way that you could think "ehhh, this almost fits". No.

The thing to do is use the Scosche HA1561TRB faceplate, which fits the AX100 and the Element’s radio surround great, and modify the stock radio’s mounts. Each has two little metal nubbins to grind off, and then the plates will attach to the side of the AX100. For the four screws, use those that came with the Sony. To mount the assembly to the car so that it fits the faceplate correctly, it must be spaced out by 2.8 mm at the top and 5.5-7mm (depending on your height) at the bottom, but then you can attach the AX100 to the same holes on the side as the factory radio. In the picture above you can see that I've mounted the Sony so that the bottom lip sticks out more than the top -- tiling it "up", since I'm tall. That's 7mm. To get it even all around, I'd probably go 5.75mm. For the spacers I used nylon rod since I had some handy, but you could probably epoxy a few washers together. The standard hardware can be re-used at the top -- it has enough thread to get in there -- but at the bottom I made new fasteners that are a bit longer, to fit the spacers. M5, .8. The setup fits perfectly, and holds much more solidly than the Metra stuff. Long story short, throw the Metra mounts in the trash, get the Scosche thing, and use a Dremel and a little tap and die set. Metra harness worked fine, though.

You don’t need one of those parking brake bypass things. The parking brake wire can just be grounded. I assume all forum posts saying that you need one of those parking brake bypass things are made by the same people who are selling them for order-of-magnitude markup over parts cost.

If you take out the instrument cluster (which is no problem at all -- three minutes!), you can easily run the microphone behind it, so that you can tuck it under the gauge bezels. A little bit of modification of the microphone's mount is required. I basically cut it down from "clip" to "plate", right where the U-bend begins. Nice and out of the way. I think having it sitting inside that sort-of-cone helps accuracy a little, too, or at least that was my vague impression from testing out different locations. There's a nice ground behind the gauges for the parking brake wire, too. Also where I shoved my garage door opener after running an external switch into it.

My AX100 shipped with the 1.02.06 firmware, and the Superdave "no warning screen" and "change bootup image" hacks work (the warning delete firmware must be installed before the boot screen is changed). If you update the unit to the latest firmware from Sony, the Superdave hacks will no longer work. However, I had no issues with 1.02.06, so that was fine. The screen doesn't seem to be quite pixel-perfect; the new image I threw in there has a circle, which the AX100 stretched out. I just narrowed the layer with the circle in it in Photoshop, running back and forth to the garage to test it out until it looked right. AX100's real good. I thought about getting the AX5000, but I'm glad I didn't. Getting the capacitive touchscreen wouldn't have been worth giving up the volume knob. Since I commute by bike this was sort of a dumb extravagence, but for weekend trips when I do drive, it's pretty good. Except that I'm a worrier, so now I'll be camping while worrying that someone's down at the trailhead busting out my window to grab the Sony. I know in my heart of hearts that nobody gives a shit about stealing radios anymore, but such is life as a worrier.
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