Rat
Well-known member
Nissan doesn't have a good solution for those of us who listen to audiobooks on CD. I've tried ripping the CDs to the USB drive, but they don't play in order there, so that's useless. See the threads in the /Music sub-forum on that. The CD player works fine, although there have been a couple of times when the panel either wouldn't open, or went into a repeating open/close loop. Both times, it cured itself after turning off the car and starting again. The problem is what to do with the plastic case the CDs come in while driving. It can be impossible, or at least dangerous, to try to fish out the next CD from the case while driving, so I want to have the case handy and the next CD out where I can grab it easily. I can leave both on the passenger seat if I don't have a passenger, but that's not entirely satisfactory since I often put other things on that seat (papers, a cap, etc.), which cover the loose CD, and when I pull out the old CD while driving, I generally drop it on the seat, where it has slipped on top of the next CD. I've ended up putting the one I just took out back in. Another problem is that in a sharp turn the CD can slip over the right side of the seat and down under the seat. More than once I've had to pull into a parking lot, get out of the car, go around to the passenger side and open the door, then kneel down to reach it. It's amazing how far down it can go. Another problem is that every time I have a passenger, I have to move the arrangement to the back seat, and if I forget to move them back to the front seat the next time, then the CD ends, I can't reach them without stopping. Sometimes there in the back the CD has wedged itself between the seat and the seat back, again necessitating getting out of the car to retrieve it.
So here's the tip part. If the case is slim enough, I place it in the cup holders, one corner down, and the next CD is slipped in "front", i.e. towards the seats, vertically. I've found I can change CDs without taking my eyes off the road. I toss the "old" one onto the seat and reach to the cup holder area, pick up the next one, and pop it in smoothly. The next time I'm stopped at a light or parked I put away the old one and pull out the next CD and place it in the cup holder. The biggest problem with this arrangement is that many of the books have so many CDs that the case is too thick to fit there, so I have to deal with the problems in paragraph 1.
So here's the tip part. If the case is slim enough, I place it in the cup holders, one corner down, and the next CD is slipped in "front", i.e. towards the seats, vertically. I've found I can change CDs without taking my eyes off the road. I toss the "old" one onto the seat and reach to the cup holder area, pick up the next one, and pop it in smoothly. The next time I'm stopped at a light or parked I put away the old one and pull out the next CD and place it in the cup holder. The biggest problem with this arrangement is that many of the books have so many CDs that the case is too thick to fit there, so I have to deal with the problems in paragraph 1.