Sounding off about something in new cars (at least 2019 on) [View all]

[Jilly_in_VA]

I don't know who thought it was a great idea to put Bluetooth technology in all new cars AND completely eliminate CD players at the same time. Bluetooth is a great thing for navigation or podcasts or whatever UNTIL you hit a blind spot, and believe you me, there are plenty of those in Virfinia and east Tennessee, where I do most of my driving, BUT it has a tendency to go wonky also. Mine did for awhile this paat winter until I discovered that my car had decided my phone was an iPod. WHAT? It took awhile to disabuse the car of that notion. Also, it gets notional about playing some internet radio stations and even local radio.

But what is further annoying is not being able to play favorite music in the car without downloading it to my phone, which uses us a lot of bandwidth and is annoying as hell. And worse than that is being unable to listen to books on CD, something that literally saved my life during long commutes and when I was a travel nurse. Heck, I suppose those have gone the way of the dodo too. Listening to books on Bluetooth is not the same because you have to a) wait for them at the library and hurry up with them when you finally get them or b) pay for them via Audible or c) use something like Librivox and listen to classics, and Librivox has not worked well for me even at home.

Dammit, auto manufacturers, just give us back our CD players!