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Last year I bought myself an IPOD video for myself for Christmas. It was a great gift that I really appreciated. However, for the last year I have been on a quest for good ipod integration with the factory radio in my BMW 325i.

I started with a Dension ICE-Link. Which turned out to be a real problem. I bought it on Ebay to save a few bucks, which might have been part of the problem. But it was supposed to give me steering wheel track control/volume control, names of songs dispalyed on my LCD on the radio, and of course good quality audio integration. Anyway it worked for about two weeks, then everything buy audio stopped working. Eventually I started getting really wierd stuff happening like my break lights staying on constantly and not being able to activate my cruise control. Rather than screw up something that costs a lot of money to fix I removed it.

Then I moved to a DLO MicroDock. This is a FM transmitter type of solution. It honestly worked great. I have recommended it to several friends which have also bought them. However, it was a cluttered and labour intensive solution. Always having to plug in and unplug the trasmitter to the lighter socket (which I only have one in a 325i so couldn’t charge a cell and listen to ipod at the same time), and such got old. There was a little engine noise in the signal at low volume, but normally I couldn’t even really hear it. It is definately one of the best FM transmitters I have heard of, none of the typical problems I hear from other FM transmitters.

This weekend I was at Best Buy and had a gift card I had gotten for Christmas burning a whole in my pocket. As I walking around geek heaven I noticed an ipod adapter specifically for BMWs. It was the direct integration style like I had started with, however, it couldn’t do the song name on the LCD display. I decided I would give it a try and forked over the $99 required to Best Buy. Installation was a breeze (after doing this twice I am an expert and removing a BMW interior) and so far it works and sounds great. It also came with a cradle for the ipod, so I am back to my nice non-cluttered interior.

Only time will tell if this will be my final solution. If this one ends up causing problems I will either buy a new car (which I have been considering anyway) or get the official BMW integrator ($150 list).

That’s right I’m selling my car. Pictures are available here. Although after being forced to drive around in a PT Cruiser rental car today, when I got back behind the wheel of the beemer at the end of the day, I must say I was having second thoughts. Someone needs to buy this thing before I change my mind….it really is an incredible deal. If you are interested you can get my email from the autotrader site.

Of course there is the question of what to get next. High on my list are the Nissan 350z, the BMW Z3 or another 3 Series. Definately NOT a PT Cruiser though….that I know for sure. If someone has owned the 350z and a BMW I would love to hear your feedback. I”m afraid the BMW has spoiled me. Even though I’m not crazy about the high cost of BMW maintenance…that all goes away when I get behind the wheel on a curvy road.

On my way home from watching fireworks on the 4th I met a truly considerate driver.  This is a pretty rare occurance in Atlanta.  I was in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic heading out of Cartersville.  This rather large Dodge pickup truck ended up behind my car.  One of those, that has been specially engineered with headlights that hit every mirror you have, blinding you.

So I was holding my hand out my window posistioned just right to block at least one mirror (at least my rearview is auto-dimming).  After a minute or two the guy in the truck realized what was going on and turned off his headlights!  So after about another 5-10 minutes we end up close to this intersection where police are directing traffic and he of course has to turn his lights back on to avoid being pulled by the cops.  So now evertime we stop he hangs back about 5-10 feet and angles his truck slightly to the right so the lights are hitting me directly.

I will never get to thank the guy (he did get the all important thank-you wave), and he will most likely never read my post.  But I was so impressed with how considerate he was that I felt others should know there is at least one considerate driver in Atlanta.  Are you a considerate driver?  Do you have an interesting Atlanta Traffic story?  If so…leave comments.

This weekend me and my brother took a trip down to a local Dodge dealer to take a look at the new Dodge Charger. Usually me and my brother don’t share much in the way of taste in cars. However, we agree on this one….very nice.

We went for a spin in the Daytona R/T with the 5.7 Hemi. I didn’t want to drive, I need to stay content with the car I have. The car has a ton of power and sounds like a muscle car should. I was suprised by the size, and the amount of room in the back. I think an adult would easily be comfortable in the backseat for a road trip.

I need to get working on my Mustang.