Wow, Vauxhall make it really difficult to fit a third party radio into one of their cars.

• Bit of wire to convert from the Vauxhall Quad Lock connector to the radio: £30
• Fascia adaptor: £20
• Cost of bits that I was sold but didn’t need and will be sending back: £50
• Listening to my ipod and getting some quality audio out of it: Priceless

Lots of effort but worth it in the end. I have lost the stalk controls (that would be another 60 quid) and also the speed dependant volume system but I think I can just about cope without them. Vauxhall also don’t provide a dimmer output in the standard wiring loom so that the radio doesn’t know the cars lights are on (which would normally cause the display to dim slightly). In their wisdom they also don’t provide an ignition wire which means I have had to wire the stereo directly to the battery cable – this means that as far as the stereo is concerned the car is always on. Apparently Vauxhall have moved these signals into a digital data bus and I can only have access to this by paying the £60 upgrade for the stalk controls.

After fitting all this into the car I went for a drive on Sunday, taking Norm off to Bristol Airport. When we were passing the new Broadmead extension I started to smell an acrid electrical burning. This is generally not good and I thought the car might be about to set on fire. I got Norm to start sniffing various bits of the car – although he had a cold so maybe this wasn’t the best approach. The smell turned out to be that bit of Bristol rather than that car… still quite worrying!