| 2005 Toyota Tacoma sirius Satellites
A few months back, we purchased a Sirius tuner for the Sport Truck shop, because we were tired of commercials and whatever else came squawking through our terrestrial radio. Plus, because of our location, we didn't get anything more than static-laced tunes. Not only that, but, we really started to miss Howard Stern and his morning show on our drive to work. Then, we thought why not just put the Sirius tuner in our truck and be happy. That was a great idea until we saw what our options were. The only way to get the satellite feed into our '05 Tacoma's radio with the Sirius tuner we already had was to use an RF module or to tap it directly to the antenna-either way, the sound quality would suffer in some way. So, then we took a different approach. Let's just change out the head unit to an aftermarket piece and hook it to that, but this opened up a whole new can of worms.
The stock Tacoma has a proprietary radio that is not your standard single DIN and would take a lot of custom fiberglassing to remove all the buttonholes and whatnot. There was no way this was going to beat us, so to the web we went, looking for anything and everything we would need, and what we discovered was awesome. We found it all, including a head unit from Pioneer that has a satellite tuner and a dash kit from Scosche that will hold a single DIN with a wiring kit that will convert the factory harness to a Pioneer plug. We also stumbled upon a set of speaker mounts from Taco Tunes that would let us install a pumped-up set of speakers. Let us just say-what was looking like a big can of worms turned out to be one of the easiest installations we have seen. Another great point to this whole thing is nothing is modified or cut on the truck, so if you have a lease, you can put it back to stock before you return it.
Once all of our stuff showed up, it was time to put it in the truck, and all of that web searching got us tired so we contacted Adam Gedik from 714 Motorsports. We told him we had an easy one for him and that it should all be plug-and-play. Since Adam is accustomed to full-blown handmade systems, we assumed this should be a piece of cake. After it was all said and done, Adam agreed with us that with these parts this is one of the simplest installations he has done. If you're confident in your abilities to remove some interior pieces and clip a few plugs together, you should do this at home, but if you are lazy like us then by all means go to your local shop and have a professional do it.
Firing Up the SiriusHere are the steps to hook up your satellite account.
* Turn on the head unit and select the External setting via the source button.
* The tuner will read "updating."
* While that is happening, write down the SID number printed on the boxand keep it handy.
* Wait till the unit displays the "Call 1-888-539-SIRIUS to subscribe."
* Call the number and pick a plan. We went with the six-month plan that cost us $12.95 a month.
* You can also do this online, but since the unit must beon to receive the updated signal, it's easier to do via the phone sitting in the driver seat.
