Important Announcement

Well, last summer my car stereo shorted out. Didn't have the money to replace it so I just suffered without music for almost a year. I drove for over 14 hours with not a spot of music. It sucked a lot.

Anyway, I bought a new stereo and installed it into my car. It's really snazzy. It changes colors too. It's set up for HD Radio and its XM ready (like that will happen.) Now I keep looking for excuses to drive around and listen to it. I'm thinking of repairing the antenna too. The radio selects pre-sets automatically and it has 16 for FM. Which is nice but without the antenna it can only pick up ~4 stations. So, I have 4 presets for each station.

In case none of you have guessed, I'm not a big fan of XM. The idea is nice and there are a lot of songs available but out of every 1000 songs over 900 of them nobody really likes. With normal (free) radio stations they usually only play what's popular except for Jack FM.

But HD radio is pretty nice. It's kind of like ID3 for radio stations. Gives info on the particular song that's playing at the time such as artist/title and it improves the audio quality. Also, if you hear a song you like you can tag it and upload the tag to your iPod and later purchase the song from iTunes.

Congrats on your new radio, I drove around in my 86 Chevy Caprice with a headphone jack on a sound card, soldered into the car stereo speakers. MY 86 Caprice had a iPod jack!! LOL!! Then I also drove a 78 GMC pickup with a eight track deck in it.

From what I hear it is a form called RDS system. That has been available in the ABQ area for the past ten years, at least to my knowledge. those systems are still buggy and does not display the right info all the time, like the time and song. There is soo much stuff on XM radio, it is hard to decide which station to pick and can be a dangerous situation if you are "driving" in ABQ. I almost had it in for me while choosing my XM presets.

The reason I got XM activated is because the reception is terrible for Classical KHFM in Los Lunas and does not improve in ABQ. Now I can listen to anything I want, anytime I am in the car. All I can say, if you like radio, you'll get XM.

Well looked into getting a replacement mast for the car. Auto parts stores don't carry the one for my car, of course. They have the one for the 5th gen celica for $20 but that doesn't help cuz mine is a 6th gen. Checked the Toyota dealer and they would have to order one but they want $60 for it.

This is the only drawback to my car. Parts for it are uncommon and finding spares in a junk yard are unlikely. Maybe I ought to call around the junk yards. I might get lucky.

Am I understanding this right? They have a replacement mast for a car that came before your car, but they don't have a replacement for your car? Is there anybody here that this makes sense to?

Yes, only American car owners call that odd. The Import car manufactures almost throw everything from the old design away and make new more improved stuff. While the US has used stuff that can be used across many years and many models. For example, a 1957 Bel Air uses the same engine design as a 1990 Camaro, and also the radio from a 2000 Impala is also used on a 2003 Oldsmobile minivan. Also use the same engine and transaxle. While the engine from say a Civic is totally incompatible from the Accord.

For outside the US, think of the car you see there on the road as a five year production, that has many unique parts, and after those years, the mold gets thrown away and you buy a newer five year design. That almost nothing, including the oil and seat covers can be used from the old car to the new. That is how the world design cars, like a one time piece of art.

Also, you probably have to get one from a parked car at school. So, have to pay the $60 for the antenna and just live for a while seeing as your car gets older. The more parts become available from outside the dealer. If you get a '57 Bel Air, you can pretty much get a whole new car these days, but for a 2007 Camry, you're lucky if you can find a replacement gas cap in Auto Z*ne. Too bad the used prices for those Toyota's keep them out of the Junkyards, but putting them into body shops instead. Yeah, only part you can find are either almost destroyed, or a part that no one needs, but a body shop.

The worst thing that happened to my car was when the ignition coil inside the distributor went bad. Ended up having to rebuild all the electric bits inside the distributor and replaced one of the parts that couldn't be bought separate from the new distributor with one from a GM. The insulation on the wires was starting to come off and had to cover those up with heat shrink. There was also a plug that was brittle that ended up snapping while disconnecting it. Replacing the plug that broke would have cost me close to $20 so I ended up wiring in a new generic plug instead for $5. It was quite a bit of work but it beat forking over $600+ for a distributor (that can only be bought from the dealer.)

I did learn something interesting about my car from all of that. It's illegal to own in California because the engine is built to match federal smog standards. Which is kind of funny because it still passes the CA emissions test.

Long time since my last communication with you guys. I do mean that in a non gender specific way.

In CA for the moment and half shafts on my car are going bad. Went to look for replacements from Pep Boys and they can't get them at all. Although they were able to find a nice price for them; a grand total of $45 each with a $5 core. As nice as that would be, I'll have to get them from somewhere else for ~$70 each. By the way, the AC works.

I have a new old e-mail address. greywindblowing@yahoo.com

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...I'm bored. Don't know what to say anymore.