A while back, the little display window on my car stereo suddenly went dark. Since I normally listen to CD's, and on those rare occasions when I do listen to the radio it's usually tuned to one station, I didn't really notice it much at first. But I eventually found myself missing it - a little - so I decided to look into a fix.
I do have a little experience with this. My first exposure to car radios was many years ago as a passenger in my parents' car. At the time I wouldn't have been allowed to do anything but listen to that one, but by the time I was in my teens and had an old car of my own, things changed.
Remember those radios? Chrome-encrusted monsters with a row of stiff push buttons that you'd set by grabbing each and pulling it out, then pushing it back in? Of course, they only received AM broadcasts, but they sure sounded good to us — especially if you'd installed rear speakers, the ultimate in customization.
I was always interested in electrical things anyway, and I became pretty adept at pulling car radios out of the dashboard when necessary (or sometimes just to tinker). If you had real problems, you could even get a replacement radio cheap at the auto wrecking yard and drop it into the hole in your dash.
The dials of those radios were backlit by a tiny bulb that could be replaced and I remember doing that in at least one of my old cars. When my modern car developed its problem the first thing I did was see if there was access to a bulb, or even a separate fuse for the display — another possibility.
Not with this car - which, by the way, is out of warranty - but I did discover that you could hold a flashlight up to the display and see the numbers, so that told me it was working and just needed to be lit up. (Don't we all?)
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
this is funny....i was watching a car restoration show on the tube a couple of weeks ago, they had a mustang fastback. so they had to replace the entire instrument cluster because of course all of it was shot. there are some nice replacements available that, even though the readouts are all digital, the shapes match perfectly.
but the radio! it was of course a push-button a.m. back in the day...but somebody now makes a replacement for that: but it's a fully operational cd player/am/fm tuner. cool! makes me want to look for one the next time i get a car stereo.
2 - Big Geez
Talking about custom car radios makes me think of one time back in the 1980's when I bought a new car and insisted the dealer remove the factory radio so that I could install a custom radio. They argued and tried to charge me for the factory radio anyway, but finally gave in. (Ironically, the custom radio gave me nothing but trouble...)
Thanks for the comment, Mark.
3 - Tom Johnson
Same here - back in 1991 or so I actually sought out the most stripped down Nissan truck because I knew I was going to do everything myself. It was not easy finding one without speakers or a radio, but I did it, and within a couple weeks had half of the interior out while I added a big stereo. Those were the days - I wouldn't think of spening that much time doing that now, although I did just this weekend replace the CD player in my parents' Jeep Liberty with one that has an Ipod input.
4 - Mark Saleski
the big reason i never replaced the stereo in my mini is (aside from it being passable) that most of the new car stereos available are just way too complicated. i can't stand multifunction front panels, everything controlled by button presses.
next time, i'm headed toward a nakamichi. a little pricey but simple! (not as simple as mcintosh car audio, but hey, i ain't spendin' that much!)
5 - Josh
I just got a new deck installed in my car so I could listen to my iPod. I went ultra cheap because I'm too inept to do my own installation and had to pay SatanBestBuy to do it.
I can now listen to any of the 15k songs on my iPod and the audio is more than passable but far from stellar. I'm too cheap to spend the cash to get any sort of "system" in my car, so this will suffice.
6 - Big Geez
Since portable MP3 players are getting more and more loaded with features, in the not too distant future car makers will probably offer an in-dash unit that will basically just be a docking station with amp and speakers, and even a screen for videos...but with a high price, because they won't want to lose the profits.