Hi, everyone, sorry to come out of nowhere and ask a bunch of dumb
questions, but the more I tried to research car audio, the more
confused I was becoming.

Here's my situation. I own a 2002 Cavalier (4-door, very basic). I
also own an iPod. I want to be able to listen to my iPod in my car.

My cavalier has a CD player, no cassette -- I used to use a cassette
adapter on my old car, but that's not going to work now, clearly. FM
transmitters don't work either, the radio band is too cluttered and
signals are barely audible and usually very distorted.

I'm aware that the Cavalier has some sort of crazy system going on
with its stereo where it's possible to disable your door chime and
some other stuff if you don't know what you're doing when you replace
the head unit. I don't think I need to tell you all that I definitely
do not know what I'm doing.

I'm not wanting to spend a fortune -- but I want something that will
sound good. I've gotten conflicting info on the ability of certain
head units to work with my car. Ideally, I'd like to get something
with a front aux input (I saw a JVC unit that had that -- KDSX990 --
but thought I read somewhere that it wouldn't work with my car.)
Failing that, if it's not a royal pain, I'll do a rear aux unit that I
could somehow plug my ipod into.

Basically, I'm looking for something to fulfill the following
requirements:
- not intrusive or unsightly
- low(er) cost ($400 is about the absolute max I'd spend on this, $250
is closer to my ideal with less than that being even better) -- figure
installation cost here too, because I have no idea what I'm doing
- Will not alter any original function of my car other than adding
this capability (i.e., no disabled door chimes, dome lights, dash
lights, etc)

It doesn't have to be unbelievably good quality. Really, the stock
stereo is good enough for me in terms of quality. I don't want or need
to break the bank on a $1600 unit. I would just prefer to have the
quality of a direct connection, be it by aux input or whatever other
method may work.

Again, sorry to just come in out of nowhere and ask a whole bunch of
questions. I'm just increasingly confused by this, got tired of
dealing with salesmen who seemed to have as few answers as I do, and
I'm not really looking to be an expert in car audio. I just want it to
work.

Thanks so much, and I'll give any additional info as necessary.