Okay, so I am in a quandry. The radio in my car is pretty pathetic. Sure, it looks pretty, but sadly with the plethora of technologies present inside of it that supposedly make it quite useful, looking pretty really is one of the only things that it does well. The rest, well are just disappointing.

It was made some time before 2008, and it is a Pioneer AVIC-F700BT. However, I was fortunate enough to get it with the software upgraded at the time so I suppose I was a lucky guy. As you’ll see later on, that software upgrade was the only one this radio was ever going to get.

I got this radio installed shortly after I got my Subie in October of 2008. I chose this particular model because the stock radio didn’t have bluetooth for hands-free calling while in the car, or GPS navigation. If I wanted those from the factory I’d have had to opt for the 4-speed automatic transmission, since the manual trans wasn’t available with the upgraded head unit. I don’t quite understand why, but I digress.

Let me mention as well, before I get into the meat of it, that when it came down to buying time it was between this one and a similarly equipped Kenwood model which was a few hundred bucks more. I chose this one on one factor alone: Price. I’ve been a brand loyalist my whole life and figured I’d try to save a buck or two, and learned my lesson. I’m a brand loyalist for a reason, because I don’t like to spend my money on crap. The folks at the audio install place even reccommended the Kenwood over the Pioneer, not even on price just on reliability alone. I should have listened.

Oh well, I didn’t. I saved a few bucks and got a half-assed “pretty looking” radio that ultimately says it can do a bunch of things better than the rest, and underdelivers on just about everything on the list.

Here’s what irritates me about it:

The navigation has gotten me lost several times, and the user interface is not exactly streamlined. Entering addresses/etc is, clunky at best.

Touchscreen requires several aggressive touches (borderline abuse) in order to work, this happens fairly regularly.

Software was last updated in 2008, version 2.0008000 is the latest available, but my radio refuses to update regardless of numerous attempts with 3 different SD cards. (even tried an SDHC, no dice.) Pioneer had a 3.0 software out for a while with some really nice new features, but evidentally it was taken down off of their site some time last year, but the 2.008000 version was posted Feb 2010… I don’t quite get that.

The unit supposedly supports voice control, that stopped working about a week after it was installed back in ’08. It can play specific artists on your connected iPod, or even dial numbers via the bluetooth, but apparently that doesn’t work either since it thinks “Call Mom” really means “Dial 911″. Ive had to apologize to the police twice as of this week.

The iPod connection is disappointingly inconsistent. Left and right channels drop out intermittently, it also spontaneously starts playing random songs even with the radio off.

The unit can supposedly transfer names/numbers from a cell phone into it’s internal memory, but you can’t access the phonebook unless you’re stopped, the voice control doesn’t work, and it hasn’t been able to sync any contacts from any iPhone I’ve had, or any of my mom’s generic cell phones. Hmmmm.

Audio quality control is very limited. It shows a 15 or so band EQ, but you can only adjust it in low-mid-high bands and that’s it. Pointless!

Now, to be fair, there are some things that DO work… Kinda.

I can make and receive calls with my iPhone paired via Bluetooth, but I have to take my eyes off the road to dial, and if i receive a call the screen shows “Unknown” since I can’t transfer numbers from any cell phone.

The whole system “sounds” fine, I can’t complain about the audio quality. It doesn’t suck, but it’s not as good as some kenwoods I’ve had prior.

Since the nav has gotten me lost before, I dropped the $29 on the Navigon app for my iPhone, which blows the doors off of any in-dash nav I’ve used.

So, as I said in the beginning, I’m really in a quandry. I don’t want to spend the thousand or so bucks it will take to upgrade my radio, but at the same time I’m using a really odd setup. An old dinosaur of a radio that is really only serving as a poweramp for my speakers, and leaving my iPhone to do the dirty work.

The fiscally responsible answer is to use it as is until the thing just stops working then replace it, but it’ll annoy the shit outta me.

One positive thing out of all of this… My iPhone will eat that radio for breakfast. It’s a better music player, a better navigation device, and a heck of a better phone. Not to mention, I wrote this blog on it.