Sometimes it has to be cheaper to get it done right in the first place. My son’s Ford Fiesta came without a radio CD so I got one at a very good price from eBay. A Sony, no less. The Garage offered to put it in for us.

That was all well and good, but it wouldn’t remember the radio station presets. So I looked on the net and eventually found the installation instructions and downloaded them and looked on sites for others with the same problem. It seemed easy – reconnect a wire, or something.

This morning I opened the gubbins and had a look. OH dear! The Ford cabling has weird colour codes. I spent quite a while looking for info on this but had no luck. In the end there seemed to be three things I could do. One of them seemed to work. Switching two wires so the switched power didn’t go to the main permanent power. It made sense really. But then it wouldn’t remember the volume settings and each time I changed channels it nearly blasted a hole in the roof as the volume was reset to full!

I was about to give up, when I thought I’d try one more time in the configuration I felt should have been correct. This time it behaved itself and seems to have kept its settings okay. Phew!

Was it worth a whole morning? It certainly would have cost to have it put right at the garage. Tomorrow my wife and son go visiting Universities and will take the car on its first long trip. They need the radio and CD! I guess I’ll get brownie points. Now all I need do is some work to pay for it all.

Why am I wasting my time writing this blog!?