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I drove it r/t to a gig in San Francisco from LA a few weeks ago and never got tired of driving it. Way too much fun and having USB makes the iPhone music too easy - especially the the Central Valley radio no man's land.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:I drove it r/t to a gig in San Francisco from LA a few weeks ago and never got tired of driving it. Way too much fun and having USB makes the iPhone music too easy - especially the the Central Valley radio no man's land.

Ahh you got the USB option? I was going to opt for that later and never got around to it. Ended up just using the mini-plug receptacle on the dash. Would like the USB though. I know it allows you to scroll through songs on your iPhone/iPod using the radio's knobs and display.

cuttime wrote:

is it just me, or does Lassie have that "you're chokin' the crap outta me!!" look?

I just took the last manual transmission in stock and it happened to have USB. My old Ranger had neither power windows & locks nor a/c. I also went with a lease for the first time. If the car is worth more than the buyout I can flip it in 3 years. If not I'll return it and get a new model but I may get a Nissan Juke at that point.

A friend said he had a Prius, and used it in the back of his PU as a spare incase he breaks down.
I have a Suzuki Swift I use to go to work, it gets very good milage, with all the big gas hogs on the road it does feel small.
So if we stay away from here do we all get new cars?
MIDI the nation or the world will never be normal or even sane.

twistedtom wrote:I have a Suzuki Swift I use to go to work, it gets very good milage, with all the big gas hogs on the road it does feel small.

Just keep reminding yourself that the evidence suggests that there's virtually no difference in injury or mortality rate between big cars and small cars (specifically cars & SUVs). Small cars may crunch more in a crash, but big cars take longer to stop and aren't as quick to control in an emergency. The numbers all kinda even out.

So don't be intimidated by road Goliaths anymore.

Central Valley isn't quite as much no man's land as it used to be. I can get various feeder stations of the Pacifica network as well as the classical stations (who have many feeders now) on most of I-5 -- though I've only driven beyond a 40-mile limit of my home once in the past eight years, and that was when I drove to L.A. over New Year's a couple of years ago to trade my 22-year old car for the only manual transmission Hyundai Accent available in California.

mhschmieder wrote:Central Valley isn't quite as much no man's land as it used to be. I can get various feeder stations of the Pacifica network as well as the classical stations (who have many feeders now) on most of I-5 -- though I've only driven beyond a 40-mile limit of my home once in the past eight years, and that was when I drove to L.A. over New Year's a couple of years ago to trade my 22-year old car for the only manual transmission Hyundai Accent available in California.

When I got a Prius V, I broke down and subscribed to Sirius Satellite Radio. Great stations, and you never drive out of range. I'm listening to radio for the first time in almost 30 years. Of course, I still carry collections of CDs around. When I tire of the radio, I listen to Marta Argerich playing Prokofiev, Bach, and others.

Shooshie

Add to that the new iOS allows Siri to find radio stations! She's not great at it yet but if you have some that stream over the net and can maintain your connection you've got another source. Not as good as satellite radio by any means but in some ways it can be easier to deal with. But we got options and there's nothin' wrong wiff dat!

I used to like internet radio via my iPhone 4. It's low tech, but I have a dash mount and if I started losing terrestrial radio, I can switch over to a station streaming over the internet. I say "used to like" because a couple of months ago I had my iPhone flashed and switched over to Cricket from Verizon to save about $80/mo. Although it works fine for the basics, much to my dismay, Cricket's data rates and reliability are abysmal as compared to Verizon. You get what you pay for. I used to listen to streaming podcasts when driving between San Diego and LA. Last couple of times it was just an frustrating experience if constant stopping and rebuffering. Sometimes it just wouldn't start up at all.

OH... BTW... this topic marked "RESOLVED" by the admin! Don't leave us again, MLC... we'll be every so sad!

If I do you'll have to change the topic again. Ha ha!