so you love your Zune and want to put it in your car, but these "car kits" are overpriced and expensive pieces of crap that turn your extraordinary sound quality to AM radio....
have no fear, i'll show you two ways to put Zune in your car the way i've done for my vehicles! with 10 years experience in customizing cars and the help from a friend with as many years in high-end car stereo, i've got just the solutions for you on a budget AND wanting the same high quality sound you're used to with the Zune players! the only downside is that neither one of my solutions allow to connect the Zune to a factory headunit (car stereo / radio) unless you have a "Auxiliary IN" plug to run the RCAs to 3.5mm headphone jack....
Plan A - Home A/V Kit
For my heavily modified 2003 MINI Cooper S, i wanted a dockable way to mount the Zune, charge it and play it through the speakers with some quality to it as well.... is that too much to ask? not if you know what you're doing with car stereo! simply get a hold of the Home A/V kit, i just bought a 2nd one to be used for my home from Buy.com for $33 shipped - a hell of a drop from $75 or even $99 for low-quality "car kits!" find a good place to put the docking base, and nail it down good with velcro tape or something similar; i suggest the glove box or armrest consoles, but other places that will work are cupholders if you're handy enough to mount it there or with a little bit of work, building an entire center console with an "8 track style" slot to shove the Zune into like i did:
Click here to see the Zune in-dash dock
Click here to view more pics of the MINI
Connect the RCA cables to the input of your radio - just the L and R for radios without a screen or all three for radios with a screen, and select the input! power it by using an inverter, plug in the power, and off you go - a complete dockable way to play the Zune in your car, have a remote control for it, and charge it all while listening to high quality sound! for a stereo shop to do this for you, they'll probably charge around $250-600 for installation alone, depending on the method of mounting the dock.... for designing what i built, i wouldn't charge anything less than $800, so don't expect a miracle unless you know someone in the industry!
Plan B - Scosche bluelife Bluetooth Car Kit
I thought long and hard about what to do for my daily driver and how to connect my Zune to the factory radio - since my 2004 Acura RSX Type-S doesn't have an Aux IN, i bought a new radio on eBay with that capability, and went from there.... now without making another docking station, what could i use? on eBay again, i found the Scosche bluelife car kit, a $250 kit, shipped for less than $23, brand new in box.... while you might not get so lucky (only one left on eBay at time of writing), you can find them for $40-60 on the intrawebz somewhere!
simply install the bluelife the way it says to in the instructions - plug it in to the cigarette lighter, tuck in the Bluetooth receiver, find a place on the dash to mount the transmitter, mount the microphone for the Bluetooth cell phone kit, and connect the unit to your aux in for the radio.... i was SHOCKED about how well this unit works, a bit of fine tuning on the receiver is necessary to get the right volume level, but once you've got it, you're golden - now i have hands-free cell phone AND a completely wireless Zune to connect through Bluetooth to my car for the passenger to remove from the dash and play with if they want to!
optionally, i mounted a hidden cigarette lighter plug behind my glovebox, put on a two-port cigarette plug, and connected a two-port USB charger so i can charge the Zune and my cell phone via USB AND power the Scosche bluelife system.... don't be scared that the bluelife is designed for the iPod - it connects via the 3.5mm headphone jack (and thus can play ANY player), so just tuck in the iPod charging plug so it can't be seen.... for a stereo shop to do this for you, they'll probably charge around $200-250 for installation alone, which is a good bit cheaper than Plan A above and gives you more functionality with the system
EDIT - here's a picture of the charging plug you can buy on eBay for less than $7 shipped, but this, connect Zune USB plug to it, and charge up your Zune since the bluelife kit doesn't come with a Zune charger! just search "USB Car Charger Adaptor Microsoft Zune" on eBay, and try to get one with dual plugs like this - i used this on BOTH applications above
if you have any questions, shoot them on here and i'll try to help out as best as i can! pics of Plan B with the bluelife kit coming soon!