REK - this is the one that should be in all Euro Ltd End GV's from 05 to 07, and is the one in my car. The REK has 7 not the more usual 6 buttons and no tape of course.

The scanner reads mine as an REK, not an RBK, and sure enough although it has no markings on the front it does have the 7th extra button but does not have the REK logo printed anywhere on the head unit. Chrysler broke their own golden 3 letter rule and did not put the sales code on the front of the set. I make the assumption that the 'E' stands for the Euro-spec and that the REK joins the RBQ, RB4, RAH and REV as [hardware] unable to play MP3's because of the separate 6 disk changer unit logic and wiring. Notably this was the year that all settings, both factory and customer preference were written to the EEPROM and run by computer and even the identifying model/part number for repair exchange order processing could be done without having to remove the radio and the world car market was moving away from 6/10 disk changers to navigation systems in high end cars. The REK's were, in addition to Chrysler - Jeep - Dodge also fitted in Mitsubishi's of the same years.

I don't want a 2008 Mopar because they are a different size and run on a different BUS system, and I don't even want an 05-07 Mopar SAT radio which does exist for the 05 Ltd Edn - I'm trying to find someone who's managed to fit a 7" flip up to our exiting BUS & wiring set up. Yes I know lads its long shot but I thought I'd as - you never know ................. ?

 

Q, your mate, Andyb200, aka 'the monkeyhanger' probably knows more about fitting aftermarket kit than anyone else on the forum.

 

Unfortunately I think this may be a tricky one.

On trying to get a bluetooth kit working on mine I found a few intricacies with the system in my GV (2004 so MK4 I think) and those gave me quite a lot of headaches.

It is also curious, a few of the different models seem to have subtle differences in how they work. My previous GV which was the 2004 CRD 2.8 LX CRV had a simpler system, in that the below wiring trick worked (you disconnect front left + and - and left speaker went off, feed a different audio signal in and that audio went to the front left speaker!) however this current one a LTD XS seems a much more complex audio system (but to achieve the same thing!) Same head-unit (from appearance), same 8 speaker system, same DVD player, single CD player, etc.

So what I found was everything is BUS controlled as you mention, so to keep steering wheel controls working, etc, you'd need to interface to that BUS. There are aftermarket cable kits that look like they'll do the job (they do the BUS emulation so receive the commands on the bus and convert to regular signals for other head units). Bit of quick googling throws up Chrysler Voyager, Grand Voyager 2001-2008 Steering Wheel Stalk Control Adaptor - 29-630

That adapter appears to take the Chrysler plug, attaches the control box (which does the BUS part) and then gives you the standard ISO fittings. Now, the only bit I've got a slight problem with here is that it's not specific on what else it does on the BUS, nor does it say anything about amp control or the other parts that are a pain!

I discovered that the audio cables from mine (I sat, labelled each and every cable coming in+out of my factory head unit, then separated them so I could disconnect/connection them separately, feed alternative audio, etc) appeared to be normal (front left + -, front right + -, etc) however they certainly didn't behave normally.

Taking a pair out of the circuit and it wouldn't kill audio to that speaker, it reduced in volume. And if no pairs were connected at power on, no audio would happen even after reconnecting them all, which lead me to believe that these are digital audio outputs going to the amplifier which did it's job and then shunted the analogue feed directly to the speakers (I never pulled a door panel off and checked the speakers. Thinking about it more, it might be worse. The audio may be digitally encoded ONTO the BUS itself, and then the speaker would have a small BUS circuit on the back of it to then read the digital BUS feed and then convert back to analogue for the speaker itself.. Or I might be over-thinking)

This made me slightly hesitant to start throwing more money at an aftermarket stereo, phone kit, etc. I'd spent about 50 quid on ISO-SOT leads alone and in the end ditched the lot of them and just used a separate speaker for my hands-free kit as just needed it done and working!

At some point I'll revisit it, take the door panel off, see what the speaker has to offer then set about trying to locate the amplifier in my model, as that may hold the key to understanding the units (and if I can tap into the amplifier directly it may be the answer to all the aftermarket mods)

Sorry to give the bad news, it's a project, that's for sure! But if anybody else has learnt other bits I'd be grateful too for the additional info.