'97 CR-V with broken tape deck & cigarette lighter: how else can I listen to music?

[systemfailure]

I have a 1997 Honda CR-V that has a tape deck and will only play cassettes (no CD player) so to listen to music I've always just used a cassette adapter that plugs into the headphone jack of my CD player or Ipod on one end and an adapter tape that goes into the tape deck on the other end. This method has worked fine up until a few weeks ago when the tape deck inexplicably stopped working; every time I put the adapter tape in it just makes clicking noises for a few seconds and then spits it back out. I bought a new adapter tape, thinking that was the problem, but the car's tape deck did the exact same thing with it too.

I took the car to my mechanic and he looked at the tape deck but couldn't see anything physically wrong. His only suggestion was to buy an entirely new radio/audio player that he would then install but told me that, given the car's design, this would cost upwards of $500.00 (which is way more than I want to spend). I considered an FM transmitter but my cigarette lighter is also broken (has been for years) and according to the mechanic, fixing that would also not be cheap...plus I've heard mixed reviews about the quality of FM Transmitters anyway.

If it helps, this is what the interior of my car looks like:

I have a set of portable external laptop speakers that I tried plugging into my CD player to use in the car but even at the loudest volume it still wasn't enough to hear very well over the traffic, air conditioner, rain, wind, engine and so on. I'm guessing most other external speakers like these will have the same problem, plus there's no real good place to put them in my car. Also, the audio system in my car has really nice quality that I don't want to go to waste so I'd like to use it for my music if at all possible. I'm pretty strapped for cash right now so I was hoping there's some other cheap, easy way to play a CD player or mp3 player through the car's stereos that I hadn't thought of yet. Anyone here got any ideas?

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[tonka 10+ year member]

bro, like $60 at walmart will get you a decent JVC

 

[bigaudiofanatic 10+ year member]

You can get a walmart deck that has a tape player for like 60-80 bucks or if you want something with a dedicated ipod connection and a cd player. A nicer alpine deck will be like 120 bucks on crutchfield.com and they include all the hardware and instructions for for your car. Do that the guy was trying to get money out of you.

If you are located neer me I could even do it for you if you wanted. I live in NJ and am currently in TN until sunday.

 

[systemfailure]

If I did get a new stereo at a place like Walmart I'm unsure of how I would take out the existing OEM one since the radio and the tape deck and all their controls as well as the air conditioning controls all appear to be a part of the same interface with no apparent way to separate them other than physically cutting them apart.

On a different note, I found this while looking at crutchfield.com:

Precision Interface Electronics HON-AUX Connect a portable music player, satellite radio tuner, or DVD player to your factory Honda receiver at Crutchfield.com

Would this work for my purposes? It's gotten good reviews, the description sounds like what I need and it presumably would not require removing and replacing my existing stereo but I'm not sure where it would actually go or what it would connect to. It says it's compatible with my '97 CR-V but in the installation details says it connects to a CD Changer, something I don't have, and also says "Factory radio must have a button labeled 'CD'" which the car also doesn't have. So how exactly would this work--if at all?

If you are located neer me I could even do it for you if you wanted. I live in NJ and am currently in TN until sunday.

Thanks for the offer, unfortunately I'm pretty far away from both those places though (Maine)

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

The radio is not integrated with your climate controls. your factory radio is totally separate. the climate controls are on a trim ring that comes off. then the radio (with cassette section) comes out with a few screws.

buying from Crutchfield will give you the wiring harness, mounting kit, and detailed instructions. that is your hands down best option.

here are the instructions:

http://metradealer.com/files/products/INST99-7893.pdf

buy whatever head unit you see you like (besides Dual, do not buy Dual). Look for an aux input and USB intput. Kenwood, Alpine, Pioneer, JVC, all have nice head units with good features in the $100 range.

 

[systemfailure]

I was talking to someone today who said that some of the vehicles like mine that were built in the past 15 years and have a cassette deck will also have a type of wire connection inside the glove compartment that you can just plug a CD player directly into (via a male-to-male 3.5mm audio cable I presume) to play over the stereo. I checked inside the glove box but didn't see anything obvious. Anyone know what he was talking about or if my '97 CR-V would have it? I should have asked him what the specific name for it was but I didn't think of it at the time unfortunately.

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Is you trollin'? Bitch you might be...