Excuse the really stupid question, but I've only just got round to using an iPod and don't know a huge amount about them.

My husband's birthday's coming up and I want to buy him something that will mean he can play his iPod Touch in the car. He also has an iPod Nano, so that might be an option.

What sort of thing -docking station?- am I looking for? I thought it would be easy to look up specifications on the internet, but to be honest, I can't understand a lot of the terminology.

Thanks in advance.

It very much depends what the audio setup already in the car is.

You have several options:

1. If the car has a tape deck, you can get tape adapters. Cheap, easy to use, decent sound quality.

2. If the car has an aux-in socket on the front panel (it'll look like a headphone socket) you can use that. This is probably the easiest option of the lot.

3. Some cars will have some way of connecting to the rear of the stereo, you'd probably need some help if you went down that route.

4. If you have a CD multichanger socket in the car somewhere, thats not in use or you don't want to use, you can connect via that. You normally need specialist kits to connect to these.

5. FM transmitters. Sends the output to the car radio. Personally, I don't like these. Sound quality of every one I've ever heard is crap, prone to interference, etc etc. On the plus side, cheap and easy.

6. Specialist kit such as a Denison ICE Link (google it). Very good, but expensive and would need specialist fitting.

Brilliant! Thank you. It's one of these I think I'm after:

2. If the car has an aux-in socket on the front panel (it'll look like a headphone socket) you can use that. This is probably the easiest option of the lot.

4. If you have a CD multichanger socket in the car somewhere, thats not in use or you don't want to use, you can connect via that. You normally need specialist kits to connect to these.

Does anyone have any recommendations for specific models? Or are they all just Apple standards that I need to get off their site?

If the current stereo has aux-in, then a bog standard 3.5mm stereo lead will do.

http://www.cclonline.com/product-inf...d=0&tid=2tt-01

Just connect one end to the headphone output on the ipod, and the other to the aux-in jack on the car stereo. Easy peasy.

If your current stereo doesn't have an aux-in socket, you need to replace the head unit. I stuck a £50 Kenwood unit in the wifes car that has an auxin on the front panel and it does the job nicely. It also plays MP3 CD's which is handy.

If you want to use the multichanger input socket, you need to get a kit specific to the car and/or the model of stereo in it .....

That's great. I have enought to get me started. Many thanks for your time.

I inquired about having the iPod adapter kit fitted to a Mini so it could be operated from the multi-function steering wheel and it was going to cost £250. I think I will stick with the Aux socket!