I bought one of those iTrip FM broadcasters to play iPod in the car the other day. Don’t bother they’re not very good! Not just the poor sound quality, you get interference from other stations, other cars with their itrips on can be picked up, and some static if the cable is not routed perfectly, which is a nightmare. Then you have to store your ipod somwhere safe yet accessible (as you have to press play on it each time you start the car).

So I took that back to the Halfords yesterday, and I have decided that I’m going to install my Alpine X001 head unit (the one I had in the Mondeo) instead. The iPod plugs directly into that, the unit controls the iPod (so it can be stored away securely only to be removed when it needs syncing with iTunes), it keeps it charged and powered too and uses 24 bit DAC so no quality issues. And it’s complete with a beautiful screen with album artwork shown.

It is a shame that I’ll lose the steering wheel controls, the in-car display and the speed sensitive volume adjuster, but other head units may restore these so I can upgrade later. Ordered a fascia adaptor (as Renault unit is slightly bigger than standard) online as two Halfords and Elliots in Cov didn’t have the one I need in stock, the went into Renault to order a tray to replace the standard in-dash CD changer as it’s not compatible, which strangely cost £5.01. Hopefully the bits will be here by Wednesday or Thursday, I’d really like to get it fitted before I head to Wales on Friday. Thankfully fitting car radios themselves are a piece of cake.

As soon as I pulled out of the Renault dealer I felt a strange yet familiar roughness, only at low revs, like driving on cobbles. Turned the corner and on came that little engine light. I knew what it was from last time, another ignition coil had failed. When it happened back in January I had to call AA out to sort it, over an hour wait at work and £49 for the part. Although the very friendly AA man shown me how to check and replace them so this was my chance to try and remember it. Either that or call him out again after work at 2am.

So parked in work car park and popped bonnet, did the check, yep one had definitely failed. Took the bit out and walked back up the road towards Renault. Just before there is an A1 motor store so went there instead, I know they’ll be cheaper. £40 for the part, not too bad. Walked back down, put it in, rechecked everthing. Job done. No more than 20 minutes. I think after the holiday I’ll get a couple of spare coils so I’m prepared then.

The money which got refunded from the iTrip went on the part, and it failed after I’d been to two Halfords and a different A1 store, annoying! Oh well

I know I’ve not been posting much lately. (But then again not many do, my RSS feed blog updates hardly differ these days!)

I’ll try to try harder. Maybe if I can find a Mac OS widget or something for Wordpress it might help.

I’m sitting at Preston depot (got 4 hours here in the middle of the night), plugged the Macbook into the WWW with my 3 dongle, sorting my blog, listening to the iPod. I’ll have to use these lulls to blog more often if I’m struggling.

Anyway work has been busier than usual, my relationship is going beautifully (we’re both going to Ireland for a 5-night break next week, can’t wait), car is running well.

Also recovering from a cold and an allergic reaction to a new shower gel I used is starting to die down, quite annoying but not tragic.

Regular readers (if there are any left that haven’t disappeared into the void themselves), keep on at me to keep updating. How is everyone doing?

Been needing a new iPod for a while as the one I have now tents to live in the car. So now the new range has been released it makes sense to get one. Anybody actually tried buying one?! Impossible to find, although they have supposedly been released. Argos ‘OUT NOW!’ on site, ‘coming soon’ in stores and ‘out of stock’ when trying to reserve one. Went into Comet in Rugby yesterday, big board in the doorway with huge words on it ‘New iPod Range Now In Stock!’. Great. Went inside and found loads of old ones still on display. Asked the woman in there, she said she hadn’t seen them. Saying things like that should be illegal, surely it’s a form of false advertising.

Seems to me like they’re a huge myth, although in Currys in Victoria they do have one of them, the new 4GB silver Nano. Which is about as much use as a floppy disc drive. Might just buy one direct from Apple or something but the way things are going I’ll probably place an order and the thing might arrive in 9 weeks time, about the time we will probably see them.

I didn’t come away empty handed though, I did get myself a nice pair of black Skechers shoes from Brantano, like trainers but without laces, with grey bits and red stitching, lovely and comfy. Not cheap but I needed some decent black ones. Today I need to find a new kettle as mine has started leaking.

Here’s the new music player for the car. Decided to upgrade, and it’s a treat for the car for behaving well this year.

Decided to get an Alpine iDA-X001 from Elliotts in Coventry and it’s a lovely bit of kit. This unit has no built in CD player, it must be one of the first, if not the first, unit with no moving parts inside. As it comes it has the usual RDS radio tuner (FM/MW/LW) but in addition is the main feature; it’s fully iPod compatible.

A USB comes out the rear which plugs into 5th generation iPods and also certain Nanos I think (other iPods can be used with a different cable not included). The beauty of this is flawless control and browsing, top sound reproduction (bypasses iPod’s DAC for Alpine’s own), the ability to display album art and also charges the iPod at the same time. I’m going to get nother iPod and leave one exclusively for car use. The iPod fits nicely into a car cassette holder and can be safely stowed there permanently.

Also a standard USB memory stick can be used (although without fancy album art), and a CD changer is available as an accessory. The faceplate detaches, as they all do, but is only about two-thirds of the normal size, handy for carrying around. The illumination can be red or blue, although as the 6 grid buttons are actually transparent blue, with red light shining through in some light seem purple, which matches my car. Bonus.

Sound tuning is simple (Kenwood had a myriad of audio tweaks!) yet sounds amazing, well as good as the standard speakers will allow. Menu and navigation is good (apart from the search/enter buttons should be the other way around, read the review linked at the end to see what I mean). Various wallpapers can be set with others downloaded from Alpine website, a nice touch.

One thing was that the dimmer cable isn’t attached on this (my JVC and Kenwood were pre-wired) so I had to plug the loose cable into the spare ISO socket. That meant buying a spare ISO connector from Halfords at a silly cost, take the orange wire out of that and put it in mine, simple to do. So now when I put my headlights on the unit dims (3 levels), making night driver better.

And now for some pretty pictures:

1: Simple install on my centre dashboard. 2: Ipod sitting in the armrest cassette holder.

3: Main panel lit. 4: Alternate blue illumination. 5: With main panel removed.

6: Clock-view mode. 7: Main menu front screen. 8: iPod album selection screen.

9: Radio title-view mode. 10: iPod main-view mode. 11: Main panel detached (size compared to payment card).

12: Illuminated at night (before dimmer-wire connected). 13: A home-made faceplate protection case (Police sunglasses case and spare Alpine sticker, I’ll make a smaller one sometime).

Links: (new windows)

Alpine product page (UK) / Alpine product page (US) / ZDnet Review