New car feature is likely making your clock display the wrong time
Posted December 16, 2015 5:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
Apparently 680 NEWS listeners do, because they have been telling us recently that our clocks are out of whack and we’re giving them a time that doesn’t match what they’re seeing on their radio clocks.
Unfortunately, it’s your car that’s the problem.
“I drive hundreds of cars in a given year, and the first time it happened to me I though you were off in terms of your times, and you weren’t,” says Tim Dimopolous, 680’s automotive expert.
Dimopolous says a feature of hardDriveRadio – a system appearing in more and more new cars – is that the system will actually pause live radio when you take a hands-free phone call in your car.
“The system actually backs up whatever has been playing and pauses it on a hard drive and then continues where you left off when you started the call,” he says. “It’s almost like a PVR.”
Dimopolous says the backup system is set up by default when you purchase the car, but it can be turned off.
“If you buy a very recent model car, chances are that system is actually engaged when you buy the car,” he says. “So unless you know and you’re waiting for it, at some point you’re going to find out that it’s on and the time is wrong when you end up being late for your appointments.”
Dimopolous suggests anyone with the hardDriveRadio system installed in their cars should consult their owner’s manual to turn off the feature if they find it annoying that the time being displayed on the radio isn’t correct.
