Anybody Know a Car Radio Guru? (1 Viewer)

[greytandy]

The radio in my 2006 Civic started getting erratic reception the day after being serviced by the dealer in September 2007. Being lazy, I didn't take it back until March 2008. I told them of the problem and they blamed the rear tinting, which had already been on the car since summer 2006. Their actual service bulletin stated a "10% degradation". This is NOT 10%, it's more like 70%. Unhappy, I called the service manager and he said they would order a "special tool" which was an antenna that hooked up directly to the radio, by-passing the rear window-embedded antenna. Being lazy, I finally took it in last week and they claimed it was not the radio, and made an "adjustment" to the antenna. Now the reception is s***tier than ever. Still unhappy and without a decent signal, I called Honda Customer Service and, in the nicest way possible, said take it to another dealer.

Does anybody know of a radio guru that would be able to help me properly (and efficiently) isolate the problem? Thanks.

EDIT: I'm willing to pay for somebody's time and effort. I'm not looking for a handout.

 

[John Smith]

Pull your radio and see what they have attached to the antenna lead. If they bypassed your rear antenna for some stubby thing behind the dash I can't imagine that would work real well. You can get powered surface mount antennas or just cut a hole and install a real antenna somewhere on the car.

 

[greytandy]

Pull your radio and see what they have attached to the antenna lead. If they bypassed your rear antenna for some stubby thing behind the dash I can't imagine that would work real well. You can get powered surface mount antennas or just cut a hole and install a real antenna somewhere on the car.

My ultimate goal is to have Honda fix the problem under warranty. For them to do that, I need to tell them exactly what's wrong. If I pull the radio, I'm sure everything will be hooked up, and it won't tell me if the radio or antenna is the problem. I suppose I could make my own "special tool" by buying an antenna, but that starts to incur cost. I was hoping to avoid that. I'm thinking some experienced radio dude would have the tools and know-how to figure this out quickly.

 

[John Smith]

I see it is still under warranty... They are going to come back with your tint is the issue and that voided that part of the warranty and they have done everything they can. Good luck!

 

[greytandy]

I see it is still under warranty... They are going to come back with your tint is the issue and that voided that part of the warranty and they have done everything they can. Good luck!

Sorry I didn't make the "warranty" part clear.

I will try my best to be a pain in their ass.

 

[emorth]

What work was originally performed by the dealership? Did they do anything to the interior of the car that might have cut or crushed the antenna cable, such as replacing carpet or seats, working under the dash or in the trunk (I assume the antenna is in the back window)???? Or was it just an oil change? Check to see if there is a connector where the antenna cable attaches to the window. Perhaps it became unplugged or broken when you stuffed that FJ40 transmission in the trunk. Could it be the dealership didn't like the tinting and performed a little sabotage? I've seen it before, unfortunately.

If you want to play, I have an RF signal generator, we can plug directly into the radio and measure its receive sensitivity. From there we can determine if it is the radio or the coax cable or antenna.

Good luck
Ed

 

[greytandy]

What work was originally performed by the dealership? Did they do anything to the interior of the car that might have cut or crushed the antenna cable, such as replacing carpet or seats, working under the dash or in the trunk (I assume the antenna is in the back window)???? Or was it just an oil change? Check to see if there is a connector where the antenna cable attaches to the window. Perhaps it became unplugged or broken when you stuffed that FJ40 transmission in the trunk. Could it be the dealership didn't like the tinting and performed a little sabotage? I've seen it before, unfortunately.

If you want to play, I have an RF signal generator, we can plug directly into the radio and measure its receive sensitivity. From there we can determine if it is the radio or the coax cable or antenna.

Good luck
Ed

Ed:

Thanks for the offer! I may take you up on it. It was routine maintenance, so there was no obvious thing they could have done to screw up my antenna. I really need to thoroughly check the antenna connection at the window. It's in an awkward position accessible through the trunk. You have a good point about stuffing crap in my trunk - though a 40 transmission would fit nicely.

I don't think the dealership is being malicious, just lazy.

Let me check out the antenna connection. The only other thing is to figure out how to take the dash cover off to get to the radio. Damn new fangled Jap cars!

- Dave

 

[emorth]

One more quick thing to check, examine the traces on the glass. Some traces are on the surface and some are between the laminations. If yours are on the surface, make sure something didn't scratch the glass and cut thru an antenna trace, especially down near the rear shelf, if your car has one. Stuff sliding and jumping around on the rear shelf does terrible things to the antenna and window heater traces on the inside of the rear window.

Ed

 

[greytandy]

One more quick thing to check, examine the traces on the glass. Some traces are on the surface and some are between the laminations. If yours are on the surface, make sure something didn't scratch the glass and cut thru an antenna trace, especially down near the rear shelf, if your car has one. Stuff sliding and jumping around on the rear shelf does terrible things to the antenna and window heater traces on the inside of the rear window.

Ed

Will do. Thanks.

 

[VA Runner]

If you are looking for someone other than the dealer, these guys are excellent, they have done various work for me. Recommended by a buddy at Leesburg Toyota.

Kar Tunes
(703) 406-0825
22360 S Sterling Blvd, #D107, Sterling, VA

Good luck!

 

[dallasryan]

This might be out of the way for you, but the guy that does the installs for Best Buy in Tysons does an awesome job. He has installed radios in every vehicle except one over the last 5 years.

He did a great job adding Bluetooth and HD radio also.

Dallas