In Car iPod Adapter for Factory Fitted (OEM) Car Radios

Factory Fitted, OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) also known as OE (Original Equipment) basically means the standard factory fitted equipment found on and in your vehicle. In this article we’ll be talking about and relating OE to your audio equipment found in your car as standard and how we can connect an iPod (Aftermarket) product to these systems ensuring optimum compatibility, reliability and high quality sound performance.

OE radios are manufacturerd by various suppliers including Alpine, Blaupunkt, Becker, Clarion, Delphi, Ford, Fujitsu Ten, Grundig, Matsushita, Philips, Toyota, VDO, Visteon. These are not to be confused with Aftermarket car radios that can be explained as radios not fitted at the factory and on the complete opposite and are for public sale and are found on car audio websites and in car audio shops, etc.

These have the attractive packaging and large investment put into marketing by each brand for retail sale as as a superior upgrade to the standard factory fitted radios. Having said that Factory Fitted radios are now far higher in quality and performance than they were as little as 5 to 10 years ago and can produce exceptional sound quality.

Aftermarket radios fitted as OE radios:

A selection of car dealer/manufacturers now choose to fit aftermarket radios as standard in a certain range of cars, and this is compatible with an Aftermarket iPod Car Adapter Kit as opposed to OE kit.

Add-on OE / OEM iPod Car Adapter Kit:

Manay websites online including in car ipod offer the biggest range online of hight perfomance iPod car adapter Packages to fit the majority of Factory fitted radios in the UK, Europe and the world, as this option becomes ever more popular year on year. Why? Simply because there are so many advantages to keeping your standard radio and adding-on your iPod in this way. The most obvious and favoured benefit is that you retain the integrated look and functionality of your cars current radio set-up and by doing so you will prevent the need for any extra accessories that would ultimately cost you more expense if you were to add an aftermarket radio then iPod aftermarket kit, as the alternative option.

View the OE iPod Adapters here and the Aftermarket iPod Adapters here 

Unique Design:

As many cars OE radios’ are a unique shape, design and are integrated into the dash they are a completely different shape to an aftermarket radio DIN (standard European radio size - approx 2″ high) and as a consequence if you were to fit an aftermarket radio you will more than likely need to invest in a fascia adaptor to enable your dash hole left by the removal of your OE radio to be reduced to a (DIN) sized aperture to accept an aftermarket radio.

In most cases you will also need other Installation Accessories including a harness adapter lead to convert your standard OE radio wiring to ISO (International Standard wiring connector) specifications to fit an aftermarket radios’ wiring connector and further expense would be added if you have a Stalk Control on your steering wheel that controls your radio as you will need a Stalk Control, SMART lead. When fitted this will give you functionality of your new aftermarket radio via your steering wheel controls.

Advantages of keeping your OE radio:

Theft deterence is another very important issue that keeping your standard OE radio provides. There will be no visible signs of adding an iPod Adpter as this will be well hidden in your glove box or active cradle that will just look like an empty car phone cradle. This is further understood because a potential thief’s main goal is to find and ulimately steal an aftermarket radio such as a Alpine, Kenwood, Sony, etc, simply because they are far more desireable than an OE radios and would be worth more money on the black market.

Factory Fitted iPod Car Adapters:

Many dealers such as Audi, BMW, Ford, VW, etc are now fitting iPod car adapters as standard, however these are often no more than an auxilliary port. This basically means that you can connect your iPod to your radio using an basic jack lead, but control of your iPod is unfortunately from the iPod itself only! This is actually not recommended as driving and messing with your iPod could result in, well a crash. Your best option is to have full control over your iPod from your radio or steering wheel controls (where fitted).

Expensive car Dealer Prices:

You can now take an in car iPod adapter kit as an optional upgrade whe you buy your car or alternatively buy one from your dealer at a later date, post sale. In all honesty the kits that are sold haven’t exactly been built using the most reliabile and performance producing components mainly due to the large profit margins that car dealers choose work with. High prices, low quality!