EmJay
Active Member
- Joined
- October 7, 2008
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Seattle, WA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2014 Explorer Sport
I have an '06 Explorer Limited that came with the audiophile radio and the Rear Seat Entertainment System, but no Navigation or Sirius Radio. I just bought an '08 Escape Limited for my wife that came with Nav & Sirius, so I decided that I wanted (no, needed) the same in my Explorer. After reading everything I could on explorerforum.com, I decided to give it a go . . .Upgraded to Navigation
http://explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196453
Adding Sirius
http://explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179253
Like many others have done (see “Upgraded to Navigation” forum) I picked up an OEM nav unit from Tony Auk (tauk@aol.com)($699) and it was truly a "plug n play" installation. It took me about 30 minutes, but I'm very methodical and it would probably take a "normal" person less time.
Next, I picked up a Ford OEM Sirius module ($28.09 + S&H) and a standard Sirius Antenna ($17.50 + S&H) on ebay. Because my Explorer came with the Rear Seat Entertainment System but no Sirius, I had to get a new harness from my local Ford dealer (Ford PN 6L214588DA, list $37.93, "my price" $27.31 + tax). If you don’t have the correct harness, your speakers don’t work.
Installing the Sirius module itself is a snap. Interestingly enough, the Sirius installation doesn’t involve the radio at all! The module goes behind the front passenger kick panel and the harness replaces a harness that goes from behind the C Pillar up to the DVD player.
To install the module, remove the sill plate and the kick panel and right there's the connector that plugs into the module. I plugged in the module, plugged the antenna into the module, turned on the radio, and sure enough, "SR" showed up as an option on the nav screen MEDIA menu. The radio actually started searching for and registering satellite channels! (I thought I'd need to register w/ Sirius before the thing would work.) Less than 5 minutes, and I had satellite radio! I didn’t have any Sirius sound yet, so I knew that I needed the new harness.
To install the antenna, I popped the hood, lifted just the corner of the plastic cowl panel and placed the antenna there. It took a few minutes to find a route for the wire through the firewall and then to place the wire, but I had the module and the antenna installed in less than 30 minutes. (I'm not sure how long it will be before Sirius pulls the plug on me and I have to subscribe, but for right now, it's free!)(Update: exactly 96 hours after I installed it, they pulled the plug . . . must be a 4 day intro period.)
Installing the harness was a little more complicated, to pull the panels that cover the C pillar, you first have to remove the seat belt anchor. After I had the panels out, I dropped the DVD player and before going on, I plugged the new harness in and sure enough, I had sound . . . . Sirius was up and running! I didn’t take the headliner out all the way, I just dropped it down a little, cut out as much of the old harness as I could reach, and then snaked the new harness into place. I re-installed the DVD player, re-installed all the panels and the seat belt anchor and I was good to go! Elapsed time less than 90 minutes.
The entire job took less than 2 hours. Total cost: Factory Nav $699.00 plus S&H, Factory Sirius $72.90 plus S&H and tax. Grand total: Ford Factory Navigation and Sirius Radio, $771.90 plus S&H and tax. Such a deal!
