Thanks for the update Xterrain. You're more a man than I to go through one of those dry books!

And now for a update of my own. After a crack of dawn ride in the Angeles Crest Forest (Black ice and gravel! ) I spent a bit of time at my not so local dealer. They let me have free reign over one of the Xterras so I used the opportunity to check out placements and fit for the car computer. Here are some pics.

I noticed that there were two unused circle-things. Yes, that's the technical term. Anyhow, they have plastic plugs over them and a hole going through to the inside of the console. I can easily mount the brass bracket shown in the picture below to hold the touch screen. The screen would block the radio but that shouldn't be a problem. The screen might even fit in the double din slot but I don't think I'll get that adventurous for a while. If anyone can chime in and let me know that those holes are off limits I'd appreciate it. It's kinda strange that they're just sitting there. I had one dealer tell me it was an air bag warning light on models with air bags. I thought they all had air bags but maybe I'm just smoking crack.


This is what the screen would look like if I mounted it as stated above. Just pretend my thumb isn't there...


The mocha hiding under the seat...


It's a tight fit under there mainly because there's a wire that crosses the underside of the seat. If that wire doesn't need to be there I can mount the mocha on the underside of the seat which would be pretty neat. There seems to be some wiring harness underneath the carpet too so that adds to the cramped conditions.

On a side note, the mocha actually fit in the storage space underneath the radio with room to spare. It'd be cool if I could just slide it in there and have all the connections bolted to the back of the storage space. There are two problems with that. It's not exactly inconspicuous and it sticks out about an inch and a half. Ahh well, I'd better stick with the under-seat idea.

As always (and even more so now) I welcome ideas and insight. I haven't spent enough time in an Xterra to know what's comfortable or right so I'm just going with my gut instinct.