They sell models (Griffin brand I think?) with auto-seek for unused bands. Not continually readjusting of course, but still easier than manual seek. I wonder what range of years encapsulates vehicles which are in that strange twilight of post-cassette, but pre-audio jack. My vehicle is still in the cassette years. Is it really that hard to install an audio jack?
Mid-1980s to late 2000s, depending on model and options, and probably even later. There was this popular optical disc format that succeeded cassette and preceded MP3, after all. I recall a family friend had a high-end car with a CD/radio head unit in 1984 or so, no cassette playback. Even the 2007 Corolla I used last week didn’t have an audio jack in its stock audio system (and it didn’t play MP3 files off of CD, oddly); CD and AM/FM only.
If you are planning on installing a new stereo, you might want to consider one that has not only an audio jack, but also a USB interface and a Bluetooth interface. I have a cheap little Sony radio in my car but it has Bluetooth and can play my iPod touch through it.
We have a 2006 Honda CRV and they didn’t even offer an option to upgrade the stereo to one with an external input - either jack or dedicated iPod / USB input. I believe they had an aux jack available for the 2007 model.
The car does have a cassette player and 6-disc CD player. So we’ve been using a cassette adapter to play the iPod, which worked adequately until the in-dash cassette player croaked.
We replaced the stereo in Typo Knig’s car with a 200 dollar unit from Best Buy, that has CD player and an iPod interface (from the back - there’s a cable that extends to the glove compartment) - and the unit actually can control the iPod while the thing is safely hidden away. Unlike just using an audio jack, where you have to pick up the iPod itself to change the music etc.
I’ll be doing something similar with the CRV soon. It’s not easy to find 6-disc changers any more (something I find useful for audiobooks from the library) but the better iPod interface will be worth that tradeoff.
I’ve got about 7500 songs on my iPod (160GB), and about 100,000 on my laptop. So I’m pretty much set.
I’ve got around 2k songs on my Android phone, only because I haven’t bothered getting a larger momory card.