I went through the same issue, got tired of taking my gel case on & off because even with the spacer removed on the car dock, placing the phone in was a hassle. Inevitably, I dropped my phone (a couple of times) while getting out of the car, and of course it wasn't wearing a case. I have searched up/down/sideways for a case that will fit in the car dock and believe me, there is none.
I got the idea of dremmeling the dock from someone on the android forums, who took the approach of heating the dock with a torch and opening it up enough to fit a case. I took the dremmel approach which definitely left evidence of DIY'ing, but at least I have a working dock which will fit just about any case. I'm using it with VZW's leather case. Not to feather my own cap, but I don't think the damage is as evident as taking the torching approach.
I started by shaving off the 2 nubs on the bottom rear of the face, which did not allow the encased phone to go into the USB port. After that though, the front lip was still preventing proper seating, so I had to take the dremmel to the lip, using a gel case for the mockup. I took the dock apart to avoid any potential damage to the USB connector via a slip of the dremmel or from plastic shavings. It's pretty easy - undo the 4 screws in the back, and carefully pry the tabs on top. Be mindful that there is a 3rd tab on the inside, around the middle of the dock, but it did not prove to be a problem when pulling it apart.
After I put the leather case on, I had to finish shaving off the side lips in order to avoid the lips pinching and scratching the leather. However, for those of you who intend to use a thinner case, you may not have to go so extreme.
The only remaining issue is that the phone cannot sit flat against the dock because of the protruding corner of the top clamp's elbow (seen on the last pic). I haven't decided whether to shave it because that piece of the mechanism seems to be hollow plastic, and as it is, it holds the phone sufficiently well.
Here are the pics of the "final" work (although I may end up deciding to take a spray can to the face but IMHO, it's really not necessary. Hope this helps some of you in protecting your phone while being able to take advantage of the dock. As far as the home multimedia dock, I'm not going to bother with it. It's going up on craigslist as soon as my custom made Mikradle comes in...
I contacted Motorola about what cases fit the car mount. They said to contact my service provider (verizon). I was told they don't know of ANY case that fits the car mount. Although "a third- party MAY make a case that fits".
I contacted Motorola about what cases fit the car mount. They said to contact my service provider (verizon). I was told they don't know of ANY case that fits the car mount. Although "a third- party MAY make a case that fits". I also made the modification mentioned earlier. I still can't find a case that will fit. I tried the Seidio innocase Active X case And the Seidio innocase Surface. Neither fits.
Believe me, I know. I spent coutless time searching for a drop-in case that wouldn't require modification, but there is none out there. I know someone here on the forum has posted their work-in-progress developing a fittable case, but as far as I know it's not in production yet.
Not sure which modification you are referring to - whether you simply removed the inner bracket or whether you actually took to shaving your dock. If you shave it sufficiently, you will get just about any case to fit in there. After modding my dock, I tried it with a gel case, a case by VZW which is a two-piece, where one piece snaps on (but has no top protection) and the other piece is a belt clip holster that the first piece slides into. The third is the leather case with a kickstand sold by VZW. I never tried with a seidio case because I heard they are much thicker than the rest of them, so I didn't bother buying one.
For those of you that are interested, I didn't like the two-piece because it puts pressure on the phone screen which creates a spot on the screen which looks similar to when you put a clear film on wet glass, with a rainbow effect. the leather case can be found on ebay for much less than VZW's price ($24.99) - I have seen it as low as $12.
I'm interested in seeing what else you folks have done to get this to work.