Car, not house, no pictures

. . .because I'm lazy.

But until I get some pictures of the fixed foundation cracks, this is what I'll write.

Back before Christmas, I got myself a slightly early birthday present - a new car stereo. My prior one had ceased ejecting CD's, and pulling them out with tweezers doesn't help them not to skip. I had thought better of Clarion - the thing was only 2 or 3 years old. Oh well.

So I ordered a new one from Crutchfield (not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but wonderful stories about their service and warranty from my friends/coworkers). It's a brand that I had never heard of, but it had good reviews, and the price was right. A Dual XHD6425 (I think that's the model number), for $129, free shipping, free mount kit, wiring adapter, etc. For an extra $50 I got a Bluetooth adapter to go with it.

HD Radio, Bluetooth, CD (mp3s), and mp3's from USB stick. Cheap.

This is the first car stereo I've ever installed myself, and sadly, the 4th in my Saturn in < 10 years. The one thing I've learned: the car/car stereo industry doesn't give one whit about standardization.

I had to disconnect the battery first. They suggest the negative terminal (easier to get to in my car), so I tried. It was like it was welded on. So I went to positive, and had no problems.

Then I had to remove the Clarion, and of course the folks that installed it didn't give me the "keys" that came with it. They screwed some stuff up too, but more on that later. Since I had a space mount kit, I just pulled the whole thing out.

The mount kit is basically just a plastic piece that fits into the dash. It originally had 2 plates in the middle of it with holes for the old tuning knobs (analog?). Those were supposed to be cut out with an razor knife - I ended up using wirecutters. Then the metal sleeve slides in, and of course, it doesn't slide in. So, Dremel to the rescue! You know it's a good project when you get to use a Dremel tool on something.

After that, just matching up colors on wires, and I amazingly got it all right the first time.

My only complaint is that I can't have the time on the display and any other useful info (station, song title) at the same time.

About a week later, the eletrical system in my car starts acting funny. . .it kind of just shuts down. And this get progressively worse over the next week.

I finally take it in, and apparently the negative terminal of the battery was crossthreaded and torqued in, actually loosening the connection inside the battery. They had to destroy the batter to remove it. My fiddling must have made it a little worse, but luckily, in the end, it wasn't a major problem.

So now I have a cool new stereo in my car :)