Z3 stereo update

So the stealth Parrot as a radio was nice while it lasted. The parrot is now showing signs of age. Since there are no spare parts available for it I decided to bite the bullet and buy a nice stereo. 

I decided on the Blaupunkt SQR46 Bremen:

Mainly for it's looks, since I didn't want some modern flashing thing sticking out like a sore thumb. It has the added benefit of not having a CD player which means the box is a lot smaller. It also has all the acronyms I crave : BT, DAB, USB, SD, AUX

Since the Z3 wasn't firing on all speakers I also added some Focals to the order. 
Yes, that's an empty hole where there should be a speaker, so uninstalling the original speakers should be easy. 

The install proved to be interesting.  Loads of trim removed and cables exposed

The shark-fin antenna proved to be just a glued on plastic thing, which made me wonder where the antenna was hiding. 

Yes, that's an antenna hiding between the roof and the liner ... guess the previous owner didn't like the looks of the antenna and was too lazy to install a decent alternative. Go figure. 

In the end all was well. The Z3 now has tunes the way it should have been a long time ago

Bridge install

 So, some years ago I bought a secondhand bridge at work. 

I finally managed to install the thing in my garage. Well, I say managed, it's more of a case of I resigned the idea of finding a larger place to work on cars.
So I decided it's better to have a working bridge in a cramped place than a non working bridge. 

We used some levitation  ...

and some Egyptian technology ..

... to get it where it should go.

The end result is a car parked a bit higher than usual, but a lot easier to work on. 

335i .. catching up

 Ok, I've just found this blog again. So this is going to be a fast post to catch you up on the last 3 years of ownership of the 335i. 

You'll be happy to know that I still own the car, and have absolute no intention of selling it. 

Since I bought it, here is a list of things that went wrong / I changed on the car. 

- New HPFP (high pressure fuel pump) it took too long to build up fuel pressure, so this one was on it's way out. So I helped it along an replaced it

- New fuel injectors: Turns out BMW still had a recall open on the car on the injectors. Normally they should test them and only replace the faulty ones, but since it's an older action / car they were allowed to just replace all six. w00t w00t ... 6 brand new index 12 injectors. Mesa happy. 

- New ESP: This design ESP pumps are known for malfunctioning. The carbon blocks in the motor tend to wear out and get stuck in there guides, disabling the motor. Once this happens, the ESP can't build up pressure and ESP is turned off. In the beginning this was solved by occasionally tapping on the unit to dislodge the blocks. In the end I had to tap too much and had the block replaced. Especially since a side effect of no ESP is also no cruise control, which is unacceptable on a cruiser as this. 

- CCC to CIC upgrade: I upgraded the CCC navigation system to a newer generation CIC. This means out goes the DVD navigation in comes the HDD navigation. One of the main reasons for doing this is that the screen resolution of the CIC is acceptable wheras the CCC is really poor. At the same time I added a conbox to the so that I could get bluetooth phone and A2DP. 

- Xcarlink & miracast dongle: Since the navigation on the car is offline I like to use Waze, but I dislike the fact that I have to look way down to see my phone's screen. In comes the idea to cast the screen. So I bought an Xcarlink box which can project a RCA source on the CIC screen, a microsoft miracast dongle and a HDMI to RCA adapter. Once all this is put together I now have waze on my navigation screen instead of the offline maps. Since this comes with a Picture In Picture, I can still see the onboard info of the car. Perfect. 

- CIC to CIC DAB upgrade: Since there's talk of the FM frequency being disabled in the not so distance future, I installed a CIC unit with DAB built in. I also needed an antenna and tried a couple of those stick-on antennas. The reception is poor at best, so I also changed the OEM antenna booster to a DAB one, which works like a charm (well duh ... it's OEM after all) I now have digital radio w00t w00t

- BBS RS wheels: New wheels installed

- Borbet winter wheels: New to me winter wheels shod in Pirelli Sottozero rubber. These are by far the worst winter tires I had, the car was sliding all over the place as soon as I hit the throttle. This year they were finally worn enough to justify some new Continentals Wintercontact TS860. What a difference they make. Happy driver again

- BMW ZHP shifter

- Wireless charging cradle. I made a wireless charging cradle for the phone and installed it in stead of the ashtray. It's one of those fancy 20w stations, which can even charge the phone when casting and navigating. Nice. 

- CIC iPod interface. No, I didn't become an iSheep, but sometimes one has to admit that they have good products which allow for some tinkering. I got myself an iPod mini of the first generation and changed the ancient 4gb HDD for a 200gb SD. Combine this with the ipod cable and I now have a huge music collection in the car for those times when there's nothing on DAB nor FM and the cell phone doesn't have coverage for cloud music. Basically because I can. 

- FLA retrofit. FLA = FernLichtAssistent, which is German for highbeam assist. Basically it's a camera that lives behind the rearview mirror and looks to traffic ahead. When the road is clear it will activate your high beams and automatically turn them off when you have traffic ahead. Works nicely for those small roads during winter months. 

- CIC HDD to SDD upgrade: I changed the old 80Gb 5400rpm hard disk for a 256Gb SSD. The idea being that I'll have more storage space for music and that the system would speed up. This turned out to be a mistake, the SSD isn't faster and the music library on the CIC takes forever to boot. So the above mentionned ipod is a much better option (and also holds more music) In the end I took the SSD out and installed the HDD back. In the process I learned about QNX and got a nice backup image of the HDD. So if the HDD goes bad in the future I can just buy a new one and keep on driving. 

- New headlight controller. The old one died so this gave me some bumper-off fun to install the new part to the car. 

- Coding: I got a Carly dongle, so I changed about every setting in the car around. Very nice thing to have some fun with and activate functions the car has but weren't enabled from the factory. I'd rather pay for the tool then to pay the garage to enable the function. 

So there you have it, I'm sure I missed some small things, but those are the major upgrades / changes to the car. I'm always looking for things to change / improve but I'm not looking for a new car. 
It's even worse, as emission legislation is getting worse, I'm starting to look into ways to keep the car longer rather than replacing it. Every time I drive it puts a smile on my face, as a proper car should. 

COTE .... I did it again

Soo ... remember my ramblings about a 335i coup, and then about a 335i sedan. 

Well I did it, I bought a 335i I've been ogling for a long time. Unfortunately the car is 3 hours drive away from my home, which leaves not too many options to go and have a look. 

Last Sunday I went over and had a look. Turns out the car is in really good shape, has about 100000km on the clock and is owned by a car lover. He did about 8000km a year, mainly to go on holidays. 

Anyway, since this is a post i'm recuperating a couple of years after I started it, I'll cut it short. 

I bought the car, took the bus to go get it and have been enjoying it ever since. 

COTE 2 ... further toughts

So I've been thinking about the COTE, and the 335i still checks all boxes, but there's just one that could be better.
It could be a complete sleeper, or Q-car if you prefer the queen's English. In order to pull that off I have to make it look like your run of the mill 318d. Which means it should be a 4 door sedan instead of the sportier looking coupe.

I have to give credit where it's due, my SO was and still is pushing for a 4 door to transport our little family. So she put the idea in my head and it made me realise the potential.

All of this doesn't make my life easier, since most people who buy, I should say who have bought these kind of cars bought coupes. The 4 door is a bit of a rarity and then I need to find an OK one with the options I want.

Speaking of options, I want navigation, cruise control, aircon and keyless go. Let me talk you through these.

Navigation, I hear you when you say navigation will suck on this car, the maps will never be up to date and even if they are it's not an online system so you'll get stuck in traffic. I fully agree and probably will never use the navigation. I just want the screen in the car. There's a lot of hardware out there to inject other streams on the screen, even as picture in picture. So here are my brainfarts regarding the screen. Miracast for the cellphone screen. It's always nice to have waze high up on the dash. Front and rear cameras and a raspberry pi connected to the OBD plug. Also this is the first generation of 3 series where some of the cars vitals are incorporated in the navigation system. So it's a lot nicer to use a big screen in the central console to check the oil level than to fumble around with a small stalk and monochrome display in the tach.

Aircon. Well this shouldn't need an explanation. Creature comfort

Cruise control. Since it's supposed to be my daily, it'll see a lot of highway. So cruise control is a must. Not neccesary adaptive, although available and nice.

Keyless go. I like the idea to press a button to open the car, and then not to have to fumble with the key to start. My previous Focus ST had this system and I loved it. I even prefer this over a keyless entry and go system, since here you still have to lock your car with a press of a button. (call me oldschool)

So there you have it my COTE wish list. Now I only need to find the car, which is going to be a nightmare. I'm already looking as far as Switzerland so there's bound to be some more stories on here before I have the car.

COTE Z3 coupe - stereo upgrade

Remember when I first got the car and said I needed a navigation system. I did spend some time looking at a parrot asteroid. Yes, well since then I decided against it. Mainly because a modern era screen looks really out of place in the classic dashboard.

That left me with a fugly radio in the dash, which in the same logic had to go as well.

I do wanted to have some possibility of music in the car and Bluetooth hands free calling is also a must, which brought me to buy a parrot mki9100.

After some fiddling I managed to get it installed and working. Apparently the bmw needs 12v feedback from the radio to turn on the amp.
For the moment the mounting is really temporary, I just stuck a blanking plate in the radio opening and hot glued the display and mic on there. Here's a pic for those who haven't seen the Z3 recently. 

If you've read my blog you'll know I spent way too much time on the S3 to do something useful in the Z3, so the blanking plate is still there.

If you know me, you also know that my mind has been over the blanking plate situation a lot. The plan is to replace the blanking plate with 3 gauges (oil temp, oil pressure and voltage) and hide the parrot completely. The display should come in the gauge cluster and the control panel in the ashtray..... One day

COTE 2... Maybe

So, since the S3 didn't do it for me I'm looking in another car. (yes, what else is new)

So it should have more power, more cylinders, more turbos, more doors (according to my SO) and less driven wheels.
That brings me perfectly to a E92 or E90 335i with the N54 engine..... Let's see if I can find one that checks all boxes.

COTE Audi S3 8L APY

Here we go.

About a year ago I bought an 1999 S3 APY.
All was well for a while until the car decided to break down a couple of months ago. OK I'm not going to lie, half a year ago.
I've been fixing it ever since and it took me a lot of tries to find what's actually wrong with it. So here's what I did
- cleaned out the air intake ducts
- cleaned out the intercoolers
- cleaned the injectors
- changed the spark plugs
- changed the fuel pump
- changed the fuel filter
- changed most of the parts in the pcv system
- replaced the ripped inlet hose
- replaced the crankshaft position sensor
- replaced the MAF
- replaced the oil pump
- replaced the oil pickup line

So needless to say, I spent a lot of time wrenching before I got the car running again. Only to realise that I actually prefer rear wheel drive, 2 cylinders more and 2 turbos more.

So the COTE is probably going to become a COTY (car of the year)

Btw, I've been putting the pro in Procrastination and blogspot is pointing it out. Despite the post date being 25/12/2016, I'm writing this in the 19/11/2017

I'm back

Well. I'm back (or at least I have a reason to rant a bit)
This time it is windows that at the basis of this rant.
Here I was reading away on, y favourite sites when windows decided to reboot.  It's really a pain that it just reboots without giving you the option of postponing it.  It's a laptop computer,  so it's not like it's going to run for ages without ever being turned off,  right? Anyway,  it's back up so I guess I'll get on with my life :)

Btw,  this was typed on a phone with a bluetooth keyboard,  so please forgive the typos

BMW doesn't like vacations

So we went on a trip for a week and a half, so the BMW 320d (yes I should specify) didn't drive for that time. When I tried to start it yesterday it had a dead battery. Luckily not dead enough for all the electronics to loose their settings, but not starting dead.

So went and borrowed a friend's (thanks Paul) jump starter. It's one of those small Lithium battery jump starters and it worked as a charm.

This got me thinking I'll have to get one of those. Some googling taught me that
- there are a lot of those out there
- they come in all different sizes (roughly 5000mAh to 20000mAh)
- most of them have additional extras like flashlight / usb charging ports / compass / ....

One thing that's really missing from most of these is the ability to charge from USB, which really hampers the power bank function of the thing. I have a nice solar panel to charge it, but can't use it.

I'll keep you posted if I find one that's USB rechargeable (and doesn't cost 150$ like the noco geniusboost)

COTE - BMW Z3 coupe

Here we go, a new COTE (Car Of The Era).

Saturday we went and got the new car, or at least the new to me car. 

It's a Z3 coupe with the M52TUB28 engine, as you guys should know from previous posts. 

Here are some pictures, which should give you an idea about the car. 

The car has dutch export plates for the moment, which are rather funny since they're just stickers glued on a plastic 

 So now comes the time where I ramble on about what "needs" to be changed / repaired / modified on the car. You've been warned.
- all bushings on the rear suspension. They aren't shot, but according to the interwebs it's a nice improvement in driving feeling and could actually prevent chassis damage in the long run
- Navigation system is much needed. I've been ogling the Parrot Asteroid RNB6. Can't wait until it is released
- Check radio reception. For the moment there is no reception. I suspect the antenna amplifier to be either defect or not powered. More digging is necessary
- Polish the windshield. There's some swirl marks in the glass.
- Gear shift knob. It's too high for the moment
- Put lights in the gear shift knob i don't have yet :-)
- Get rid of the curb rash on the left rear rim. Not much, painting and polishing should do the trick.
- replace the engine hood ground wire
- and the list goes on :-)

COTE - The end of an era

As i write this, there is an empty spot in my garage. It's been 7 years since that's happened, but it finally happened again. The celica has been sold. 

That concludes a decade of me driving a toyota celica. The first 3 years and 98.000km were driven with the one and only black celica. The last 7 years (and 200.000km) were driven with the gray, which never really truly could fill the footsteps of the black one. 

So yesterday I sold the car to two Libanese brothers, the older one paying for the car the younger one is going to drive. Given his enthausiasm for the car, and his brothers sceptism, I thinkit's going to a good home, maybe even a better home than it had with me, since for him it really is the one :-)

This also means that my COTW rants are going to have to come to an end, since I'll have to decide on what car I want to fill that empty place in the garage. For the moment I'm chasing down a BMW Z3, so keep your fingers crossed for the next post to arrive very soon. 

RANT - FOD economie Arbeidsenquete

Dear Readers, 

Some time ago I got a letter telling me that I was one of the lucky ones selected to take part in a mandatory survey. Some random person would get in touch with me in due time. 
Apparently the guy came to our place some evening around 18.00. Needless to say we weren't home, so he left a card saying that he would be back. In case I wanted to make an appointment he left a phone number. A landline number. That's alarm bell number one. 
Being a good citizen I gave the guy a call and made an appointment for saturday morning. But not before calling the FOD and asking if i could take part by phone. The nice lady told me that this was only possible for pensioners. So let's get this straight. Working people, who are all day occupied at work and have to cram their household chores in the few waking hours are supposed to waste some more time. This would be alarm bell 2 for you. 
So anyway, saturday morning, I eagerly await the FOD guy. Turns out it was an 80 year old guy. 
He installed himself and took out his laptop, on which he typed the answers to the questions. I had trouble restraining myself from taking the laptop out of his hands. 
Anyway, the questions were 
- Do you work
- Since when
- Where do you work
- How do you go to work
- What kind of work do you do
- What kind of contract do you have
- How much do you earn
- What's your highest education
That's it ... nothing more. It took about half an hour in total. Yes you read that right, half an hour for those few questions. 

I really honestly wonder why they didn't just use an online survey. So I asked them. Here's the question and the answer i got from FOD : 

Geachte heer, 

Hierbij heb ik uw mail overgemaakt aan de verantwoordelijke van de dienst arbeidskrachtenenquete van de fod economie. Hij zal u verderhelpen met uw concrete opmerkingen.

Met vriendelijke groeten,



U hebt op 14-2-2015 om 9:32:59 de volgende vraag aan ons gesteld:
Beste, 

Ik heb daarnet een enquêteur op bezoek gehad i de het kader van de arbeidsenquete. 
Deze man was van redelijke leeftijd en moest mijn antwoorden op computer intypen. Zelf ben ik programmeur. Ik hoop dat je de ironie kan appreciëren. Zelf had ik de vragenlijst nauwkeuriger en uiteraard vlugger kunnen invullen. 
Is het niet stilletjesaan tijd om dergelijke enquêtes online te doen? Dit zou enorme besparingen met zich meebrengen, zowel op gebied van tijd voor beide partijen, geld voor de FOD, en gemak bij het verwerken van de resultaten. 

Hopende dat er volgende enquête de 21ste eeuw waardig is, 
Groeten.

This is the answer I finally got on my mail. Apparently the participation rate is higher when they send people instead of going online. A slight improvement would be to send people to the xx% of people who don't reply online. Giving us good citizens a break :-)

Bij de Algemene Directie Statistiek organiseren wij al jaren enquêtes bij huishoudens via internet. Enkele voorbeelden zijn: het Reidonderzoek, de ICT-enquête over computer- en internetgebruik door huishoudens en de Adult Education Survey over levenslang leren.. 

De reden waarom wij voor de Enquête naar de Arbeidskrachten een beroep doen op interviewers die aan huis komen, heeft met kwaliteit te maken. Bij internet enquêtes neemt slechts tussen de 20% en 30% deel. Als wij de enquêtes laten afnemen door interviewers, dan stijgt de participatiegraad tot 80%. Wij hebben die kwaliteit echt wel nodig om een correcte schatting te maken van het aantal werkende, werklozen en niet beroepsactieven in België. 

Intussen hebben wij een project opgestart om na te gaan hoe we in de toekomst wel het internet kunnen gebruiken voor de Enquête naar de Arbediskrachten, zonder al te veel in te boeten op kwaliteit. 

Met vriendelijke groeten,

RANT iCoyote part 2

In my last post about iCoyote, you'll remember that I wasn't all that chuffed about how the upgrade worked.

In the last couple of bugfixes, some of the bugs got fixed. So I now have, or should i say had a working program. The last update broke it again. When I stepped in my car the other morning after an update the program would just crash. It took me a clear data / force stop / reinstall / wait a day / reinstall / clear data / .... you get the idea before the damned thing would start again. 

Bear in mind that I recently paid 90€ to renew my licence. I must be erred but I expect an expensive piece of software to just work. Especially since it's a rather simple program. Face it, it's a database with a front end on evey smartphone. hardly rocket science. 

Anyway, it worked again, but the interface is crap. Let me specify that for you, the text prompts are a real mess. It all starts with the first startup, where it gives you the choise of what country you're in. I'll ignore the fact that a GPS enabled program has to ask this for now. So you chose your country and then you can chose your language. Here the trouble starts, not all languages are available. I live in Belgium, so the official languages are French, Dutch and German. Two of which are available, yes you read that right, there is no English to choose from even if my phone is set up completely in english. Ok, let's just select dutch shall we. 

That's where it get's really funky. None of the prompts are proper Dutch. The best ones are google-translated from French, some are in German and some are just not translated. 

I'll see if I can get you some screenshots in the next couple of commutes.

Here not a prompt, but a rather funky average. Mind you, all the prompts are in English.

 The text says "radar gemiddelde snelheid" which is a direct google translate from French. The voice prompt uses the official Dutch "trajectcontrole"

 Here we have a couple of typical google translates. Oh and you guessed it, "Nein"and "Ja" aren't Dutch either. In this case German is used, in another case (no screenshot) it's in French.

This is a funky one, not a clue what a "Rijdende mobiele" is, but somehow I got warned about it.

COTW BMW Z3 coupe 2.8

Those following this site might have a déjà vue, but bear with me. I'll tell you how I came by this car  ... again.

I decided that I really want to replace the celica with something else. I've been driving celicas for the last 10 years and covered 300kkm in them. Time to move on.

Soooo I want rwd (shouldn't come as a shock to you guys) I also wanted it to be cheap, i.e. if something goes wrong with the car, I don't want to have to go back to driving a lesser car. So the Porsche is out of the question. This leaves us with the MX5 and the S2000. 

There's a world of difference between the two of them, but in the end it boils down to one is cheap and modifiable the other one is a finished product at a higher price. So MX5 it is. 

That explains that for the last couple of weeks I've been looking for my ideal MX5, which is a black on black 1.8l with aircon. Of course this being the one I want, makes it about a rare as they get. 

In my wanderings along car sale sites I've recently came across a Z3 coupe 2.8, which made realise I still love that car. So I wandered off in another direction and did some more research on the car. 

You'll remember, or you can just click my previous post, that I wanted to change a lot of parts on it. Well it seems the latest 2.8, which was introduced in 1999, already has double vanos. I only need to make sure the engine is a M52TUB28 instead of a M52B28. There you have it, some motivation to accept a 2.8 in my life other than the tax advantage compared to the 3.0, the fact that they are easier to find and they look gorgeous. 

Anyway, I'm off searching for some cars :-)

Beemer was thirsty

Yesterday the beemer was very thirsty.

She told me the range was 0kms. Where the 4 dashes are, there used to be a number indicating how many kms I can still drive. But she was still running as you can see on the tach.

And when filling her up, I put in 62,32l, whereas the tank capacity is 63l

Guess driving LPG this long has made me less sensitive to the fuel needs of a car. In the Celica there's always fuel or gas just a press of a button away.

The beemer gets the Greg treatment

Well, the beemer has been my Faithfull companion for the last couple of weeks commuting. So long enough to start modifying it beyond the foam cup holder.
Two things have been bugging me.
1. The complete absence of cupholders, which might seem a small issue. Not so small if you factor in 270km a day starting at 5:30. Think morning cup of Joe and you get the idea.
2. No aux to the radio. Which is not too bad as long as you stay within range of a decent radio station or have a big cd collection. I was planning a round trip to bologna, so there goes radio coverage and my cd collection amasses to 2, of which one is a Michael Jackson cd I got as a birthday present when I was 12.
The first problem was quickly solved by cutting some foam in shape and sticking it in the central ash tray. Looks weird but gets the job done.

The second problem can easily be solved by giving bmw 60€. This buys you a 3.5mm jack you need to install in the car. Rather pricey for a stupid wire so off to Google for a better solution. I was rather disappointed not to found something better so I go thinkering. The schematics for the cable are easily found, I have a bluetooth receiver laying around collecting dust. So there you have a better solution, just put one and one together and hide it somewhere in the dash. Unfortunately that's way too easy. I wanted a completely integrated BT receiver, so I cracked open the receiver case, soldered on some wires. Now all I need is 5 volts to run the receiver off. So I  cracked open the the radio and went hunting for a power line. That's where I got lucky and found a nice accessible 7808. Combine this with a 7805 I had laying around and pronto 5volts :-) Now a that's left is to solder the previously soldered  wires to the corresponding pins and hot glue the receivers print inside the radio unit.
Here are some pics for you :
The all important collection of resistors and capacitors to trick the radio in thinking it has an AUX-IN attached to it.

 Some wires soldered to the BT receiver :

 Here's the 7805, which will feed the project

 And the 7808 which was already mounted in the radio. With all that metal to cool it, it should be possible to feed the 7805.

 The inside of the radio, with the pins where I'll solder the BT receiver

 Some more metal to cool the 7805

 All soldered up, ready to add hot glue (sorry no hot pics)

COTW - the final one

With a title like that this is bound to be a good one, so enjoy.

This morning I had the dreaded MOT visit again with the Celica.

I made it there at 6:45, before they opened and was first in line. I guess i'm not the only one crazy enough to do that, since at 6:46 we were already 4 waiting for the gates to open. So I drive in, the guy pours all over the car, slightly cursing at my LPG installation, which gives him more to do. But  in the end all is fine and the car still conforms to what's written on the documents.

That is until the time comes to pay. The guy in front of me is called to the desk and is given an LPG price, on which I step in and tell them that will be mine. I pay my dues and walk off with my papers. Having a bad feeling about the name mix-up i check my documents, and they are for a Renault ... yuck ... a Kangoo of all things. So I head back to the guy and sort out the documents with him. Upon which the desk clerk wants to see all the documents and spends another 5 minutes rummaging through them before realizing her mistake and handing both of us the correct papers. I guess that's a downside to arriving this early, they haven't had time for coffee yet.

So I go out to the Celica with a green ticket and a new LPG sticker to put on the windscreen. After which I drive off and decide to take the small windy roads home in celebration. Of course paying homage to my old adage "life starts at 6200". After some slight speeding on the tones of AC/DC combined with a screaming engine I arrive home with a huge smile on my face.

That's about when it hit me. Of all the cars I have been rambling about, there's actually only just one which can give me the same feeling as the Celica. The S2000. There is just no substitute for revs. The feeling you get when the car kicks you in the but at 6200 after a nice smooth buildup of power throughout the rev-range ... I confess, I'm an addict :-)

So there you have it, if the Celica will ever be replaced, it will be by another high singing car. For the moment the only car worthy is the S2000.

RANT - Smog alarm

So today we had / are having Smog alarm in Belgium.
In short the air quality is poor and to solve this we're going to drive at 90kph instead of 120kph on the highway.
Since I have a 140km commute, this has a big impact on me, and this gave me a lot of time to think this through.
Here are some random remarks

• It causes the trucks,which usually drive on the right lane to drive in the middle. As everybody knows, trucks are limited to 90kph, so setting the limit for everybody at 90 will cause a messed up situation. You'll have your "cautious" drivers doing 85 on the right or middle and trucks overtaking them. 
• All the media hype you get the last days makes people ignore the signs along the highway. So even on places where 120 is still allowed you'll have the white van man blocking you. Which might not be such a big deal if you only have 15k to drive. Me on the other hand was rather annoyed. 
• If instead of having 99% diesel cars on the road, we had more petrol engines we would have less pollution. Way to go politicians in pushing for diesel. 
• On a side note, has anybody who drivers an "ecological car" ever achieved the claimed consumption ? On my 10 year old diesel, which is supposed to be very un -eco I commute using only 5.5l/100km, beat that. 
• Wouldn't it make sense to make everybody's commute shorter by trying to get rid of the traffic jams ?
• Wouldn't it make sense to make commuting by train more pleasant and efficient. I simply don't get why I need to spend about an hour extra for the same distance when taking public transport. Let alone why trains can have delays. They only have 1 track, no other cars on it and the trains stations have been the same since ages. But hey, i'm getting side-tracked. 

Oh well ... I'm not looking forward to the trip home :-/

RANT - iCoyote update woes

Last week I got a nice popup on my phone telling me about the new version of iCoyote.

I went ahead and installed the new version, all 37Mb of it. (why should a program with just one function be that huge ??)

Ever since I first used it, I long for the old version. Call me old or retro minded but the old version of was just plain better. OK it didn't look as fancy but at least it did the job and didn't make me feel like throwing my phone out of the window. 

Now I have to cope with

• A screen that's stuck on full blast since the night mode doesn't work. Sure it works in the settings screen but once you're in the main app it goes back to blinding. 
• A broken mute function. If I want it to shut up I really want it to be silent. So no beeps to tell me how far I'm away from the radar, nor overspeed beeps
• Sound that's always on media, even though the settings are set to notification. Since my podcast is set to mute on notifications of other programs, it now happily keeps on chatting when iCoyote makes a sound. Combine this with the previous point a d you have a very annoying bug. 
• An indication  telling me I'm doing mph instead of kph. Hello iCoyote people, we have metric here in Belgium. Luckily the speed is in kph, so at least I don't have to constantly re-calculate my speed. 
• Nag screens. Every time it tells you there is a vehicle stopped or a mobile radar it asks you to either confirm or decline its presence. This is all well and good, were it not for the nagging sound every couple of seconds followed by a obnoxious buzzer if you fail to answer. Sometimes I prefer focusing on driving rather than fishing for my phone to answer a question.

In short, I want the old version back.

And as a closing thought it would be nice if the iCoyote people actually listened to their customers. Given the number of 1 star ratings they're getting on Google play lately, one would think they'd do something about it, or at least have send some communication out into the world. Guess again.

I'll have to give Waze a test-drive.