Don't Try This At Home

IN my lifetime I've owned only three cars. My first was a 1974 Toyota Corolla which I drove for over 18 years and only ridded myself of it because I was tired of it. The next was a 1992 AUDI which I kept for nine years. And now I have a Toyota RAV 4 which I've had since 2001.

I was in the market for a new car, saw the RAV4 at an auto show and said to myself, "that's it."
This came with a CD player, tape player and radio.













I was very satisfied with the manufactured brand. About five years ago I was playing a CD for someone inside the car, realized that I was running late and hit the EJECT button so hard, it slid behind the console. No amount of fooling with it would get it back to its home base.
After that if I wanted to eject a CD I would have to press the spot where the EJECT button used to be until the CD popped out.

Over time even that began to fail. Each time I'd push the envelope a little further urging the CD to eject while punching with keys or straightened paper clip.

About two weeks ago, I popped in an Alex Bugnon CD and no amount of finagling could get it out.
This CD was not my own but one I borrowed from the Public Library.

That's when I decided it was time to get a new CD player. I'd priced one at the dealer. $700 was not what I wanted to pay.

WHAT POSSESSED me to think that I could unscrew the thing and get the CD out is beyond me.
But I tried anyhow.
I've removed the face of the unit. That's the air conditioning duct above the audio unit.













Here's where I pulled out the whole thing but didn't know what to do with all of those wires and things in the back.

This was painstaking work. I'd bought a socket set some time back .

I don't know how to use a socket set, so I had to toy with that for a looong time.

I still didn't get the CD out so I put everything back in place but didn't screw it back in.

I put the screws in an envelope minus one that fell behind the console.

MONDAY MORNING

I went to an audio shop to have a new audio system placed in my car. I didn't want anything fancy just something to play my CD's on and listen to the radio.

Here it is!

I no longer have a tape player but I have radio and CD player

And it has a remote and this bag which I was clueless as to what it was for.

I guess the installer thought I knew it was a pop out radio, but I didn't. I didn't discover that until I got home. By accident. The bag is to place the face of the radio inside when you remove it.

Here you can see that I've removed it .



There's a USB port to connect music I've downloaded to listen to on my MP3 player, IPOD, Walkman, etc.




I was shown how to operate the radio by the installer but pressed the reset button by mistake so I have to listen to the Walkman until I read the directions on all of its features.

The CD is still stuck in the old player. I have paid for the CD at the library.

THAT'S IT ***