As many of you loyal readers are aware I lease my car through my company. The lease ends at the end of 2 years and the car then gets replaced with a new leased car for another 2 years and so on and so forth.
Today was the exchange of cars. I was very impressed with the service as this time they actually came to our home, delivered the new car and drove off with the "old" one. I had been negotiating the various aspects of the new car for about 3 months now so I had a good idea what to expect. I had signed the contract at least 6 weeks ago. But it's always a pleasant surprise when a new car drives in to your garage and you know it's yours.
I took exactly the same model as before (Renault Mégane). The only major differences are that this one has one more horsepower (7 instead of 6) than the previous one and it's black instead of royal blue. I appear to be in the minority in my family as regards the choice of colour and they'll probably never forgive me for it.
As a loyal customer I was able to negotiate a few options while maintaining the same monthly price as I was paying before. One was just for fun: a sun roof. I haven't had a car with a sun roof since California and it was a lot of fun to sit in the garage, open it up and stare up at... uh... the ceiling. I'm sure it will be a lot more fun to look up at the stars or the sun whenever I finally get the nerve to pull this beautiful thing out of the garage and in to the frighteningly dangerous "real world".
The other option which I felt particularly strong about was a box to allow me to connect my iPod, or any other digital audio player). When I take long drives, to Normandy for example, I tend to download specific Podcasts and then I have to burn them to CDs to be able to listen to them in the car. There is even one which I particularly enjoy, the Engadget Podcast, which I can't even get to fit on CDs and therefore can't listen to it in the car. As many of you are aware I have a reasonably impressive digital music collection with currently over 1,000 albums or 18,000 songs. It seems ridiculous to me, in the 21st century, to have to burn my songs to CDs every time I want to listen to them in the car. As you can see the iPod connection was one of the most eagerly anticipated aspects of the new car. To summarise: it didn't work.
I found the box in the glove compartment, which the dealer had proudly showed to me but had never tested, and the 3 different cables for the 3 different types of connections. I plugged in the iPod and I could see that it recognized the connection. The Renault logo appeared on the screen of the iPod. But no sound came out. This was one of those rare cases where I actually cracked open the manual. I realise there are several readers who have known me for years who find this act completely unbelievable. But exceptional circumstances require exceptional measures. I followed exactly what it said in the manual, as well as a few bright (or not so bright) ideas of my own, and still no sound came out. I called the leasing company. They sent me off to the neared Renault dealership as it turns out this is the first time they have installed one of these new ultra-modern devices in one of their cars and they were unaware of the specific and complex functions. I was personally unaware that the concept of playing music from an iPod through a box which was supposedly designed specifically for that purpose was exceptional.
I found the nearest Renault dealership, in Asnières, and showed up with my iPod Nano, my iPod Shuffle and a USB Key with some MP3 files on them. After about a half-hour of talking to 3 different "technicians" they sent me to a bigger Renault dealership in Courbevoie. They were unhappy that I was coming to them with a problem with a system which they had not installed. They sent me to a total of 5 different departments (ateliers) before I finally just gave up and came home.
Once at home, in the pleasurably dry situation of my garage as it was raining outside, I started plugging in the various equipment to be able to report what I had tried and did not work.
- I plugged in the Nano and this did not work. I knew this already
- I plugged in the Shuffle, through the headphone jack, and... it worked!!!
- I plugged in the USB key, expecting it to work as the Shuffle had, and it did not work
I felt as though I had made a landmark discovery and should be congratulated by the entire Renault organisation throughout the world and immediately. However the iPod still did not work and I was not going to driving around with this amazing new contraption and only able to listen to the sounds stored on a Shuffle.
Looking through the manual they described, in several different languages, how there is a sort of priority system: if the headphone jack is plugged in to a device it works and the others don't; if the USB key is plugged in to a device then that works and the iPod does not; if the iPod is plugged in and nothing else is plugged in then it shoudl work. But this is what I had been doing. Each time I had only plugged in one device to its cable. A lightbulb lit above my head in my comic book universe...
I unplugged all 3 cables in the glove compartment and rolled them up neatly. I plugged in the Shuffle to the headphone jack cable and plugged it in to the box and it worked. This was a step sideways as this already worked. I unplugged that cable. I plugged the USB key to the USB cable and plugged it in to the box and it worked. A major step forward. I unplugged that cable. I plugged the iPod Nano to the iPod cable and with a hand shaking with excitement plugged it in to the box. Eureka! Sounds!!
The box works with only one cable plugged in at a time. Duh!
I left the Nano plugged in, neatly rolled up the 2 other cables for future use, pumped up the volume and bopped my head up and down in sheer audial pleasure for as long as I could stand it.
As you can see from this rather long explanation: For me a car needs to get me from A to B as easily and reliably as possible. Therefore I don't care that much about the motor, the innards, the mechanics and the various practical elements of the machine. It's the accessories that makes my car... mine!
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