Monthly Archives: June 2017

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15Jun/17

Five Popular Car Options That Barely Get Used By Owners

Basic Knowledge of Car Stereo, Car Headrest Monitor
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In one of our recent Top 5 pieces, we looked at our favorite car options that people rarely have on their cars. In this Top 5, we wanted to take a look at some car options that have been popping up on a bunch of cars recently, that we think are actually useless. We have chosen five popular car options that are available in a lot of cars, that cost additional money to buy, but are rarely used on a daily basis.

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Sport Mode We love the current crop of sports car that all have adjustable drive modes to configure the car. Ford got a lot of publicity with the Drift Mode in the Focus RS, which has now been copied by Mercedes. In a sports car, these modes are usually very distinct, but the sport mode on a boring family sedan is a different story. We have seen sport buttons on everything from the Hyundai Elantra to the Lexus ES, but they really don’t do much. People who purchase these cars aren’t expecting a canyon carving sports car. These buttons rarely get pushed, and are therefore useless.

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Paddle Shifters Just to be clear, we aren’t referring to automatic transmissions, just the paddle shifters attached to them. Like our sport mode choice, we love paddle shifters when they are actually relevant. However, a CVT Honda Accord does not need paddle shifters. How many people actually drive their Accord around “shifting gears” through traffic? In most mainstream cars, the paddle shifters get used on the test drive after the salesman points out how cool they are, and maybe once or twice in the first month to show off to friends. After that, people rarely use them which makes them a waste of money.

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Rear Seat Entertainment This is one of our most hated tech features in cars. It was nice as a kid to have a car DVD player in the back of the car, but kids today have so many more options like iPods and iPads that make the rear seat entertainment systems seem like a waste of money. These systems can cost thousands of dollars from the manufacturer, when you could just as easily go out and buy two iPads for your kids for a fraction of the price. We do like the expensive systems in cars like Porsche and Mercedes that can access car menus and control infotainment, but we wouldn’t want to relinquish control of the radio to screaming kids in the back seat.

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Power-Adjustable Seats On our previous list, we declared our love for high tech seats with advanced functions like massaging. However, we also admit that power-adjustable seats are usually just a useless option. Jay Leno likes to point out that a power seat usually only gets used once. After the driver has set up their seat preference, the power seat remains dormant for most of the car’s life. The only exception to this is when one car has multiple drivers that frequently switch out. For this scenario, memory seats can come in handy. For everyone else, power seats are just heavy objects that get hauled around without much purpose.

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Moonroof/Sunroof A large, panoramic moonroof can make a car’s interior seem extremely spacious even if it is very crammed. These large glass units have made the normal moonroof seem silly in comparison. We rarely see people driving around with their moonroof open, which defeats the point of having one that even opens at all. Many automakers have started to offer a “moonroof delete” option for enthusiasts who know that the moonroof adds weight up high, which can ruin a car’s handling.

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14Jun/17

That’s why a lot of families have turned to in-car and portable DVD players

Basic Knowledge of Car Stereo
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Kids can drive you to distraction — literally. While time in the car can be great for reconnecting families, hours in traffic can lead to fights, toddler meltdowns, and distracted moms and dads who need to pay attention to the road.

BMW E46 Android 6.0 Car Stereo

That’s why a lot of families have turned to in-car and portable DVD players to keep the peace during long road trips or simply while running errands around town. A lot of drivers are even finding that while waiting for soccer practice to end, an in-car DVD player can provide mom or dad with a few minutes of relaxation as well.

BMW E46 Android 6.0 Car Stereo

When it comes to in-car DVD players, buyers have several options. New car buyers can opt for a factory-installed system. Similar to other factory-installed options like a sunroof or air conditioning, for instance, these DVD players are installed when the car is initially built and are the manufacturers’ original equipment. However, if buyers aren’t in the market for a new car, they can still have the in-car small-screen experience.

They simply have to have the car dealer or a car audio shop install an aftermarket DVD system in their “new” used car. Another option: Buyers can just go down to the local electronics warehouse store and pick-up a portable DVD player that requires little or no installation.

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UK store: http://www.autopumpkin.co.uk
DE store: http://www.autopumpkin.de/

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13Jun/17

Car DVD Player Mysteries

Basic Knowledge of Car Stereo
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Many people who are considering purchasing an aftermarket car DVD player soon find themselves quickly confused by all the acronyms or abbreviations that see in an online add for some whiz-bang player.

here’s really no mystery to what many mean and just a couple minutes research can reveal just what the ad for the player is saying. In this regard one of several car DVD player mysteries: What is PTY? is quickly answered with just a brief read through this article.

Android 5.1Jeep Wrangler:2007-2012 Car stereo

To begin with, today’s modern aftermarket car DVD players come with a variety of functions and features.

In addition to standard radio, TV tuner and DVD/CD/CD-RW (compact disc, rewritable) and other disc-playing and decoding capabilities, the player might also feature GPS navigation, Bluetooth communication, picture-in-picture (PIP) and other convenience features. One of them is PTY. But, what is it and how does it work?

Simply put, PTY is a feature offered in many car DVD players sold in a number of countries that allow the user of the device to search for radio broadcast channels of certain types.

Android 5.1Jeep Wrangler:2007-2012 Car stereo

For example, say somebody likes talk radio or even classical music. In countries that require broadcast signals to contain identifying signals such as the programming format of the station (and most do), the car DVD player will be able to pick out only those stations featuring those formats.

In the United States, one large domestic auto manufacturer has offered a variation of PTY in certain of its car radios for years, and it works well at picking out stations that broadcast their format types through their signals.

Now that many countries are making the move completely to digital broadcast, the amount of information that can be contained in a typical signal is almost limitless. PTY, therefore, will be seen with greater frequency in the years to come.

Many aftermarket car DVD players sold in countries where the broadcast standard is DVB-T (“Digital Video Broadcast Terrestrial”) offer the PTY function as standard equipment.

This standard isn’t available in North America, where ATSC has replaced the older NTSC standard, so always make sure that any aftermarket player being purchased comes with the right broadcast signal tuners for the country in which you live.

PTY can be a very convenient feature for those users who are traveling through areas in which they’re not familiar with the radio stations and what their programming formats are.

Going from London, England over to Liverpool might mean having to look for your favorite ska or jazz music in the new city. Well, with PTY it’s as simple as using the touchscreen or the remote, selecting the kind of music you’d like the player to find and then letting it locate a station playing that kind of music.

If there are problems with PTY it mainly has to do with the function’s occasional inability to easily identify stations that don’t clearly broadcast the right kind of information in their signals.

PTY can sometimes hang up on one station, in which case it then needs to be manually re-tasked. It’s really no big deal, though. So; if you’re in the market for a good player, know that you can find one that’ll find you all the stations you want with a simple command.

View more products at our global online store: http://www.autopumpkin.com/
UK store: http://www.autopumpkin.co.uk
DE store: http://www.autopumpkin.de/

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