So I have a new car.. it has a nice stereo, but I wanted better. I found out that you could get a nav dash for around $200. For one, this is way expensive for a small peice of plastic..and the double din requires you to have to use not one but two adapters to get a double DIN to fit. This in my opinion was alot of border and alot of money. So like the DIY guy I was, I decided to mod the existing one.

Keep in mind, this isn’t fully done.. its a rough fit, and will be molded better once all the car audio parts arrive. I am missing an adapter still so the dash cant go on.

For starters, heres the dash I have:

Notice the knobs are sticking out on the radio? Yea.. that doesnt help in the ease of mod department.

I ordered the metra dash kit used to install in the navigation bezel to work from.

I took out the tray, cut the middle piece out with a dremel (per the metra instructions) and then cut the top and bottom part of the bezel off. This left me with this:

I cut right to the adapter part that bolts into the car. This will make it more flimsy but it should still hold up well inside the car. Notice how the screws are in the plate.. this isnt how its supposed to mount but it angles it up a bit to allow for better placement in the dash. I also plan on enforcing this better from the back inside the dash. (L brackets to rest on.)

I then had to dremel the dash to the appropriate size. I trimmed the left and right sides so the metra would just fit in snugly. The bottom I had to sand down even onto the heater panel. This was cutting it very very close.

Notice the top of the heater lost a bit of the plastic that holds it in. Its alright since its screwed on.

I then fit the radio in place to test fit:

It doesnt look the best. So at this point I needed a bezel. Since the dash is chrome, I went to the hardware store and picked up some chrome strips for cars. I found this will look pretty good.

Thin chrome for the top and bottom:

Thick chrome for the sides:

For those interested in how deep the dash is, its about the same as a standard DVD:

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