So for the holidays I bought a Pioneer AVH-2300 and AVH-1330 for my son's and daughter's vehicles (keep their phones out of their hands).
The AVH-2300 install into a 2006 Saturn Ion Redline with Advanced Audio (i.e. factory sub) was uneventful, other than I wish there as an internal amp disable, rather than having to deal with RCA plugs! I used an inexpensive harness/interface, as I didn't care about retaining OnStar.
Yesterday, I spent 9 hours (not including my solder prep time!) installing the AVH-1330 into a 2010 Chevrolet HHR with the Pioneer Audio (Factory sub, too, so again RCAs!). For this I used an Access AX-GMLAN11-SWC harness so I could retain the steering wheel controls (next time I doubt I'd bother).
After a botched firmware update on the radio (lost power! but it recovered) and trying to program the Access interface, everything seems to be working.
Note I did have to bump up the front channels by their max +10db on the Pioneer, as front speakers were not very loud.
My only complaint (so far) continues to be around front speaker volume for non-music. For CarPlay, maxing out the "guidance voice" on the Pioneer makes the navigation voice usable (could be louder), but Siri is like a whisper.
I also tried a phone call via bluetooth, and it too was soft.
I'll play with it some more today. Does anyone else have any thoughts?
BTW, I took advantage of the good holiday prices/rebates on these units - in retrospect, I'd probably just pay a little more / wait for a deal on the Sony xav-ax100. I like it's cleaner interface, and the thin chassis (no DVD) would have made cramming the harnesses/interfaces in infinitely easier!. The poor HHR looks like swiss cheese behind the radio now thanks to my dremel!
