Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin Auto Kit for iPod with Dock Connector

I bought this after reading the very positive review on iPodlounge. Taking the adapter out of the box, it looks great, and feels like a good build quality. The velcro cable tidy is a nice touch, too. Sadly, though, once I tried it in the car, I found that it just didn't work for me.

The problem is that the spring-loaded contacts (a) are too far away from the plug end of the unit, (b) don't project far enough out from the unit's sides and (c) aren't anywhere near stiff enough. This means that, in our car (an S registration Fiat Punto) the adapter is not held securely in the cigar lighter socket. If you touch the Belkin adapter, pick up the connected iPod to change a track/volume, etc. or hit a bump in the road, the adapter pops slightly out of the lighter socket and loses power. This tells the iPod to pause playing, so you then have to hit play again. This would happen 4 or 5 times in my 9 mile journey to work during which I'd barely touch the iPod on the passenger seat, which is no good at all.

So, I returned it for a refund and have gone back to using a double-ended 3.5 mm jack to plug into the car stereo fascia, which is unpowered, but works fine.

The really gutting thing is that this fault would have been so easy for Belkin to address when designing the adapter. My £5 mobile charger makes a good, tight, dependable connection in the cigar lighter socket. It Belkin had used a connector like that, this would be ideal for me. Unfortunately, that kind of attention to detail was lacking.

Your mileage may vary, as they say, and it might work just fine in your car. Try it out and if, like me, you find it's an attractive but useless piece of shiny white plastic, you can always return it.

I may now try the similar product from Monster as the connectors look like they project rather further than those of the Belkin adapter.

Don't be put off by the low price charged by Amazon, this is a good piece of kit. Early days at the moment but have used mine for 3 - 4 hours at a time and it works faultlessly and the IPOD has stayed fully charged.
You must read the instructions and set the volume on the charger - otherwise there is no output (got the Tee Shirt on this).
I like kit like this - it just does what it says it does.
PS: I do not usually endorse products, but this deserves it.

Mine works fine in a VW Bora (see review below re: poor connection with lighter socket), although it did come unstuck occasionally if I knocked the ipod off the seat - I guess it varies from car to car.

I used this in conjunction with a cassette adapter. It does a really good job of boosting the sound (especially the bass) with its built-in pre-amp, but be careful you don't overload your speakers!

Having been through 2 other ipod car chargers, both of which suffered from interference from the car, which sounded like a whine, changing with the engine revs. The Belkin offers a line out from the lighter plug, which gives a fantastic sound, with no interference. A great product, I wish I'd found it before I threw my money away on similar products.

Allows electrical noise to run through the audio.

Build quality is not great. After a week, one of holding catches has snapped off.

Charges the IPOD though.