Why am I so old school with car audio systems?

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So cool and easy (Ok, maybe not cool) Source: Google images

So cool and easy (Ok, maybe not cool) Source: Google images

I think of myself as progressive. I use the internet for a lot of things – paying bills, managing accounts, watching inane videos. I even have a smart phone. Technically the phone is smarter than the owner but that’s a whole different post.

Still…there are some things where I am old school.

My car has a fancy schmancy system. They call it interactive. It connects with my phone. There’s a GPS that I never use and there’s the audio system.

Oy vay.

The audio system. *bangs head on table*

There are neat little thingies on the steering wheel where I can change channels or the volume but I never remember they are there. There is the screen on the dashboard where I can tap things.

I miss the buttons.

Remember back in the day all car radios had 5 or 6 buttons that you preprogrammed. You touched them and the station changed. Quick. Easy. You didn’t need to look at the dashboard. You knew exactly where they were.

This system doesn’t work like that. Yes, I have preprogrammed stations but there are no easy buttons. I have to tap the screen (never a good thing because I tap the wrong thing and I’m at a different screen) or punch the button on the steering wheel.

Part of it is my own fault. When I programmed the stations they didn’t end up next to each other. There are empty slots that I have to click over to get to another station. If I want to change from Sirius to AM or FM that requires that I pull over to the side of the road and get out the instruction manual that’s 3” thick. (It also requires that I pack a lunch, my jammies and toothbrush.)

I’ve had the car over two years and I still don’t get it right on the first try. At the beginning (before I learned that I really need to not be driving when I do any of this) I almost hit a pole. No audio is worth that.

Now I use two different stations (that are close together). I will stay with that until I find some nice eight year old child who will teach me how to use my car systems.

I am so old school!

58 thoughts on “Why am I so old school with car audio systems?”

  2. I have one of those systems, too. I have managed to figure out the buttons, but I’m supposed to allow Siri, the computer, to do things for me. Like change the channel on the radio, or go to navigation or call someone. Siri is an idiot. She cannot understand what I say — I am speaking English and I took enough diction classes to know that it’s her not me. And when I ask for directions, she tries to send me to Iowa.

    So glad I spent extra on her.

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  3. Kate, I felt the same way when we bought our car last year. But I discovered the coolest thing! It’s programmed to recognize my keys when I come up to a door, and it automatically unlocks the doors and sets the driver’s seat to my height. (I’m really short.) It also recognizes Charley and sets the driver’s seat to his height, (He’s very tall.) But if he’s going to drive and I run to the passenger door first, the driver’s seat moves up to my height setting and he can hardly fit behind the wheel! Then he has to squeeze in and put his foot the brake to readjust the settings. It cracks me up every time! (I have a dark side!) Clare

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    • I have some of those features and I love them. I love keyless ignition and touch locking. I love the memory seat functions. I love the auto open for the back hatch. In fact the only thing I’m not in love with is the navigation-audio system although I know it’s me.

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      • Kate – You aren’t the only one. I’m told it has been a huge problems in many models since 2012. I avoided using the navigation system until I got lost one day in another state. Then I learned things really fast. I still have times when I can’t shut it down and then the screaming starts and I have to remind myself – it can’t hear me!

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  4. I wanted to push the Like button here several times but WP won’t let me. I can so relate to this! I bought my car five years ago and have been meaning to get around to reading the instruction manual for the radio, clock etc. My radio has about 12 different buttons and I just tap at them randomly until sound comes out of the speakers. I have learned to add three hours and subtract five minutes from whatever the clock says to figure out if I am going to be late for work (again).

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    • There would be a fortune in making flash cards for car systems. Want to change the clock, pull out the flash card and lickety split it’s done. Want to program stations, same thing. The cards would be larger with print you can actually read without the Hubble telescope. It would be simple, push this, push that and at the end it would direct you to get an ice cream. I too have been meaning to get around to reading the manual. I hear there’s a good plot but it got a bad review on Amazon.

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    • With the mileage I put on yearly (hardly anything) my current car should outlive me. Some stuff I really like — the backup camera — but there is a lot of stuff I’ll never use. If I was 40 and busy with a career it may be different but I don’t need a car to tell me where the closest pizza place is.

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      • Since moving to Florida, I’ve only put 6,000 miles on the Honda ~ about a 1000 miles a year. The car has 98,000 miles on it. So it could last another 20 years if I keep babying it.

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  6. I can pretty much relate to this. My car is a 2007 Toyota with a very basic audio system compared to most of what’s out there — and to be fair, what was out there when the car was sold too. Yet I still don’t really use but probably two buttons on it. I have no clue with the others do. The picture at the top of your post is absolutely beautiful to me. I love its simplicity and sleek design.

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  7. My car is so old it still has buttons. And my cell phone is a dumb, pay-as-you-go. I’ve mastered the TV remote but hubby deals with all other remotes in the house. So for now I’m good until the car dies. Then I’ll need to find a nice eight-year-old.

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  8. I feel your pain! Once Dan got all my music on a tiny little thumb drive (hundreds of CDs, can you imagine?) and plugged it in, I’ve not tried anything fancy. When I tap on the USB button I just listen to my music in alphabetical order rather than try to search and tap and whatnot. Now I know how to recite all my music in alpha order!! Hey, you know, it could count as a skill.

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  9. My car is way too complicated. I should have had a clue when the sales person sat with me in the passenger seat for at least 45 minutes to go over everything (as if I could remember even half of it). Fortunately for me, I only listen to the local NPR station so I don’t need to screw with the radio dials. I’m with you, bring back the buttons.

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  10. I feel your pain although I don’t have a car with these modern things on it. I do have a suggestion, although more expensive than an 8 year old. Lol. Trade the car in for something older. Nah, stick with and you’ll get it figured out.

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  12. It seems as soon as you get something and learn to use it, they come out with something better. We got a new TV. Surround sound is out, sound bars are in. Car GPS is out, cell phones have it now. Voice activated everything is in, except on cell phones where text is in. I give up. I had a rental car with the screen where you can see behind you when you back up. I did like that. I saw where they are now making smart refrigerators. That figures, I just bought a new dumb one. Even stoves have circuit boards. I tried to buy one without electronics and they apparently don’t make them anymore.

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  13. There is a ridiculous trend in technology toward making our interaction with it more involved. It seems to me that we are not moving forward if I have to be this involved to get something that used to work BEAUTIFULLY with one gesture/push of a button.

    You have to DIG through a smart phone to just get to the dial pad. It has PHONE in the name but to dial a number, you have to click 3 or 4 times to get to the dial pad. And then the sound quality is TERRIBLE. Even on landlines because they’ve all gone VOIP. And these young kids think that is NORMAL They don’t know that we used to talk to people on the phone and could hear them with perfect clarity EVERY TIME, ALL THE TIME.

    Sorry. I sound like a grumpy old woman, but geez. Technology is supposed to make things better and I often feel like its making it worse.

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  14. In our family, it’s the copilot’s job to regulate the air and troubleshoot all the electronics. The driver (husband) has learned how to load and play CD’s. I’ve paired the phone. We haven’t ventured into playing a DVD yet. We’ll sell the car before we learn everything there is to know.

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  15. New technologies make me crazy. Just bought a new computer with Windows 10…still haven’t used it yet. I tell myself that I will do so when the days are a little less busy…could be a long time.

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  16. Well I still don’t have a cell phone… and just recently met a lady who also saw no urgent need to get one, so there are at least two of us on this planet!
    As for technology? That goes with the generational culture changes, in that we have technology now simply because we can. It does not have to make sense, or make life easier (and every update messes things up anyway), but it just has to be. They are promoting a car feature here in which the sound system is turned down (not muted) until the driver’s seat belt is connected!
    We have two cordless phones here and a feature which allows paging i.e. if you lose one of them, this paging helps you to find it! Sounds great until you realize a corded phone could never be lost in the first place. Technology has simply solved a problem which it alone caused! That is where we have “progressed” to! 🙂

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  18. I feel your pain. My car is so old that it doesn’t offer any of those doodads and thingies. When it comes time to buy a new vehicle, I plan on taking a week off from real life, secluding myself in the garage with the manual [hopefully paper, not digital] and learning it all. Until then, I’ll cross my fingers that my old car never dies. So sorry you are going through this now.

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  19. I hear your frustration but I have to say I love our audio system in both vehicles. I am a car gal from way back in my teens. I got the love of all things cars from my Dad. I actually understand how to use the audio. Love the hook up with the phone and you have to admit those buttons on the steering wheel are genius. We had a car that you had to tap on the screen but that car misbehaved (not the screen) so we traded it last year. Now our screen works differently and I like it much better… haven’t hit a curb in a year! Actually the only time I hit a curb was during my drivers test when I was 16, I flunked and didn’t get my license for a year. I like that our vehicles communicate with me… 🙂 It is the windshield wiper thingie that drives me insane.. too many choices so I just choose AUTO!

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  20. My radio still has knobs!!!!! Yes, along with all the electronics there are knobs. And since I have not figured out how to program the presets, I just use them to go back and forth between the two stations I generally listen too. I do, however, like the voice command thing. Although, sometimes “she” doesn’t give me great service.

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    • Knobs! I covet your knobs (gad, that sounds kinky). You probably can change “she” to a “he” although I don’t know if that would improve the service. Maybe a voice with a nice British accent.

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  22. I have a similar system in my minivan. I had the van for 3 months before I complained to a neighbor (a former IT guy) that I couldn’t play CD’s in the thing, there only seemed to be a place for a thumb drive. He showed me how the front of the thing tilts out and, Oh!, it will play a CD! It also will play a DVD to amuse the grands when I have them in the back. Who knew? There was nothing in the stupid manual about this system!

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  23. I hear you! I have not used our TV/audio system/PVR Since my husband (the Electrical Engineer) connected them all together. Even one of our computers and his cell phone are connected and I don’t even know how to turn the flipping thing on!!! We have seven remotes. I am not dumb; I choose NOT to learn!

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    • The inside TV is a another story. Beloved husband had to have surround sound (separate remote). We have remote lighting (2 different remotes). The TV has a remote for the TV and one for the cable box. I have a cheat sheet to watch a dvd because you switch remotes. He tried to hook up a “universal” remote but it wasn’t “universal.” I like buttons because it’s never intuitive for me (that’s a phrase they use to make you feel dumb because you can’t figure it out).

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