Modern cars and USB ports

[Dave2002]

In the last year or two on several occasions I've hired cars for short periods. Some new cars, perhaps most, now have USB ports. Are these generally just for charging up other gadgets, or do they also serve as inputs to the car sound system? Maybe it depends on the model.

I wondered if it would be worth making up a USB stick with a whole bunch of music which I and others I travel with might like, in the hope that we could play music during journeys made in such cars.

[Old Grumpy]

I don't know if it can read a USB stick, but be careful if you try to charge your phone in a hire car. I did this in Canada and the next thing I knew, all my contacts were downloaded onto the car's sound system. It took me a long time trying to read the manual online on my phone to work out how to clear it!

OG

[pastoralguy]

Mrs. PG traded our trusty Nissan Qashqai in for a brand new Vauxhall Corsa. The Nissan was a great motor but with 134.500 miles on the clock it was starting to be expensive to service as well as the high cost of fuel for an 11 year old car. The new motor is excellent EXCEPT it doesn't have a CD player! So, it has a USB stick which I've had to learn. Yes, it can carry a colossal amount of music but I find it fiddly to use since writing up the contents is quite hit and miss.

I've just returned from a trip to the Lake District and was lucky enough to pick up half a dozen nice discs which I have to keep until I get home instead of just sticking them into the CD player. I suppose it'll have to do until my lottery numbers come up and I get my Bentley! (Mind you, I did end up driving down a single track road to get to Cartmel which would have been impossible in a huge car!)

[Dave2002]

I don't know if it can read a USB stick, but be careful if you try to charge your phone in a hire car. I did this in Canada and the next thing I knew, all my contacts were downloaded onto the car's sound system. It took me a long time trying to read the manual online on my phone to work out how to clear it!

OG

Thanks for the warning. After looking at a number of sites re the USB sticks and the car ports, one suggestion was not to bother, but to use an Android phone instead. I was just about to try that, but will now shelve that for a while.

I have ordered a cheap memory stick for testing, though it looks as though most car systems are fairly crude, and not Apple friendly. Generally requirements seem to be to use FAT32 and mp3, but a USB stick formatted on Apple kit may have hidden files which upset the car systems - allegedly. It seems a bit of a minefield, with some players also supporting .wma format (not too widely used now), but not FLAC or other new formats now.

I’ll report back. I may have to use dot_clean** to get rid of some of MacOS hidden files - a complication which I didn’t even know about until very recently. At least with CDs one could just put them in, and they usually worked. I dread having to replace our cars which have CD changers, and one will also play mp3s off CD ROMs.

**I wonder if not using dot_clean was a reason why I couldn’t get a memory stick formatted on a Mac to work with our “smart” Toshiba TV.

[pastoralguy]

My Apple iPhone connects to the Corsa's Bluetooth system with no problem BUT I did buy a portable CD player with, apparently, Bluetooth capability. Despite following the instructions to the letter I had no joy so it went back to Amazon. (It was about £70!) So unless Apple develop a CD player then I reckon my in-car cd playing days are over. I have to say that the 'hands free' 'phone facility is extremely handy!

[Dave2002]

Ah - Bluetooth. That’s another option, of course. Trouble with hire cars is that they’re probably all different, with different systems, and risks as well as pointed out by OG upstream. At least with CDs, even though relatively bulky, one could generally be sure that they were going to work.

[MrGongGong]

I hired a car a few weeks ago while the trusty Vovlo got itself a new clutch (OUCH ) plugging my iPhone in to the USB port brought up CARPLAY
I said YES and everything worked, phone, podcasts and googlemaps etc .... simple and surprisingly good even though I don't store music on my phone.
I would avoid bluetooth but that's more to do with experiences with other gear etc and it's probably fine for car playing... though I do find I can secretly pair a family bluetooth speaker with my latop and introduce people to the joys of Ryoji Ikeda

[Pulcinella]

Our Kia Venga came with a lead that on one end has a plug that fits into an iPod and on the other a combination that plugs into both the USB and aux sockets in the car.
As mentioned recently in the Breakfast thread, I discovered that it now works with my Classic iPod, which wasn't the case with our previous Venga.
Just home from a quick visit to Norfolk (down yesterday, back today) and enjoyed a Brandenburg (#1) and then complete Songs of the Auvergne going down, and Rachmaninov S1 and the Goldbergs on the way back.
Got to play with the cruise control too, and were delighted to get a 54.4 mpg average for the whole trip.

[Dave2002]

The USB stick I ordered specifically for testing arrived yesterday. Already in FAT32 format. Inserted into MacBook Pro earlier todsy, and "tossed" a few MP3s into it. Put in Hyundai i10 hire car usb port - and selected Media. Worked fine. One issue might be how to organise and find the music on the sticks - not sure if the player uses folders - probably does. Search using mp3 tags might be a few steps too far.

Considering the time taken - about 5 mins max - this could make some car journeys much more pleasant - though maybe not guaranteed to work in all cars.

[richardfinegold]

My Honda Accord USB port is almost worthless for charging my phone. I’ve used both iPhone and Android and tried different cables. About the best to hope is that it decreases the rate of battery drain when using a power hungry program such as Navigation. When I rent other manufacturers cars, the usb charger is much better

[Bryn]

The USB stick I ordered specifically for testing arrived yesterday. Already in FAT32 format. Inserted into MacBook Pro earlier todsy, and "tossed" a few MP3s into it. Put in Hyundai i10 hire car usb port - and selected Media. Worked fine. One issue might be how to organise and find the music on the sticks - not sure if the player uses folders - probably does. Search using mp3 tags might be a few steps too far.

Considering the time taken - about 5 mins max - this could make some car journeys much more pleasant - though maybe not guaranteed to work in all cars.

Given the potential for vibration, knocks, etc. to interrupt the connection of long USB sticks, I would recommend something along the lines of https://www.mymemory.co.uk/sandisk-1...ash-drive.html

[Dave2002]

Given the potential for vibration, knocks, etc. to interrupt the connection of long USB sticks, I would recommend something along the lines of https://www.mymemory.co.uk/sandisk-1...ash-drive.html

The pretty cheap Kingston stick I bought (16 GByte) - around £3 - was fine for this - https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-...gateway&sr=8-6

As I suspected, the player in the i10 Hyundai seems fairly simple - and appears to use folders to group pieces together. It's usable though, but no handy search features that I can find, and I'd guess that one has to make up playlists explicitly by copying files into folders. Maybe the players in some other cars are more sophisticated - but being able to listen at all is a definite plus point.

Those who have cars with USB ports might like to do this, and those of us who sometimes use hire cars might find it helpful to have one or two sticks ready to go for future use.