Question about car radio... sorta

Publin

Firstly, apologies if this is not the correct forum, but I thought you guys might be the best people to ask.

This is a kinda weird question I suppose, but basically the clip-in part (or whatever the technical name is) of my car radio/cd player has gone missing after I left it in for service and stupidly left it in the car. The main part of the unit itself is still fitted in the car, but I'm wondering if it possible to buy just a "clip-in" part for it? To add to the difficulty, I'm not sure what make/model the system is.

If anyone could suggest anything helpful that would be great. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to buy a new system (expensive?).

Thanks .

colm_mcm

What sort of car is it? IIRC, the Philips ones on old Nissans can be interchanged, but Ford ones are specific to the headunit I think.

Anan1

Why not just get the garage who serviced the car to replace it?

Publin

colm_mcm wrote: »

What sort of car is it? IIRC, the Philips ones on old Nissans can be interchanged, but Ford ones are specific to the headunit I think.

It's a Fiat. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing... (from a radio point of view)

Anan1 wrote: »

Why not just get the garage who serviced the car to replace it?

Haha yeah I know. It's a small one-man practice, my family and extended family have used him for years and he's very good and very reasonably priced. We've never once had any trouble. The car was left there overnight as I couldn't get out of work in time to collect it the evening it was serviced, so it could have went "missing" then. I'm very confident it wasn't the mechanic himself, sure it'd be useless to him and he's not short of business.

I can't explain what happened to it, but the carry-case of the clip-in part is still in the car so that's how I'm sure I didn't take it out of the car.

Anyone any ideas if it's possible to buy such a part, or how much a standard car radio would cost (thought I saw them for about 90 quid in Aldi/Lidl, but I'm not sure how easy they'd be to fit for someone who knows little about cars like me)?

colm_mcm

what Fiat is it? model and year please.

Publin

colm_mcm wrote: »

what Fiat is it? model and year please.

Oh sorry, it's a Seicento, 2000. Without the radio its value is probably halved .

Thanks for the help Colm.

colm_mcm

heehee. I'd say just get a new radio. the Seicento came with a casette player as standard, so any system you have in there is aftermarket.
The Lidl/Aldi ones are only usually for sale for a week, the Aldi ones came out on the 2nd week of October and the Lidl ones in the 3rd week. I'd say they're sold out now.

Argos and Halfords do good deals on stereos, Argos sometimes have huge reductions on their instore leaflets, and Halfords do free fitting on some stereos.
It's not a difficult job on a Sei, but if you can get it done for free, then all the better.

Publin

colm_mcm wrote: »

heehee. I'd say just get a new radio. the Seicento came with a casette player as standard, so any system you have in there is aftermarket.
The Lidl/Aldi ones are only usually for sale for a week, the Aldi ones came out on the 2nd week of October and the Lidl ones in the 3rd week. I'd say they're sold out now.

Argos and Halfords do good deals on stereos, Argos sometimes have huge reductions on their instore leaflets, and Halfords do free fitting on some stereos.
It's not a difficult job on a Sei, but if you can get it done for free, then all the better.

Cheers for that, was thinking as much but feel it hard to justify spending any money on the car as I'm trying to put it towards a new one (for obvious reasons ). But I don't think I can do without a radio! This was a CD-player, so I guess a previous owner "upgraded" the stereo system.

Just wondering if the removal of the old radio and installation of a new Argos/Halfords one is something I could do myself? I'm ok when it comes to general DIY, but know little about cars.

Thanks again.

Guy:Incognito

Did you check under the seats and in any cubby's etc? It's possible he couldnt fidn the off swicth and took the face off and put it on the floor or somesuch.

colm_mcm

I fitted a stereo in my friends Sei a few years back and it was simple. the fact that you can reach under the dash and actually push the stereo out makes it a doddle.

you need to swap the cage that fits to the cars dash.


The radio you buy will have standard ISO plugs and an aeriel plugged in the back. you just need to remove these and fit them to the new radio.

Even a novice would have it done in 20 mins tops.

Stekelly makes a good point about asking the mechanic.

Publin

Stekelly wrote: »

Did you check under the seats and in any cubby's etc? It's possible he couldnt fidn the off swicth and took the face off and put it on the floor or somesuch.

Yeah cheers, it's the kinda thing I would forget to do or not look properly! But it happened a few days ago, I've since cleaned out the car completely (took all of 2 mins :pac:), checked the side compartments in the driver and passenger doors etc, no luck. I rang the chap as well and he said he knew nothing about it, didn't remember seeing any piece of the radio. Thanks for the input though.

Edit: Sorry, should have given the above info. in the initial post.