Ok, I was having problems with the radio in my 04 XJ8 where it would mute/unmute erratically on its own. For the longest time, I had thought it was a bad connection in the steering wheel controller. I never really paid attention to the MUTE button on the head unit until I pressed it one day and noticed it was sticking. After some fiddling, I confirmed it definitely was the problem, and decided to pull the head unit, disassemble it and clean it with electronic switch/tuner cleaner.

As it turned out, there was simply gunk built up on the black MUTE button, as well as the surrounding buttons. After pulling the unit out, I removed the front panel, removed the faceplate, and cleaned each button. Reinstalled in reverse order and turned the radio on.

The radio powers on, and tunes to 87.9 FM. I hear static in the speakers when I turn the volume up. The volume knob is the only thing which works. None of the radio buttons work. None. Not even power. The steering wheel controls do not function. I redid the steps above of removing, disassembling, reassembling and reinstalling the radio, on the off-chance one of the membrane switches was jammed. Still nothing.

I didn't get a CODE request (I have the code for the radio).

Did I kill the radio? Will it "wake up" eventually, after so many power cycles?

If it's dead, no biggie. It was pretty much unusable as is. There are several used replacements on eBay for ~$150. There's also a touch screen unit for $345, which I really want to install, if it will drop in. I don't care about the NAV function, as long as the radio and environmental parts of the touchscreen works.

Any ideas?

 

Ok, to answer at least one of my questions, the radio did "come back to life" after a few drives, but it is very erratic. The mute/unmute thing still occurs, even though the buttons move freely. Still have a problem with none of the buttons working. Once, I was able to switch to a preset station (amazingly, even after being disconnected twice, the radio settings were preserved) before everything locked up again.

The mute/unmute problem doesn't appear to be related to road vibration. It happens sitting with the engine off. Guess it's time for a new radio...

I love esoteric problems...

 

To save $150, it's probably not worth your time to figure out. Just buy the headunit on eBay!

 

As an old school electronics technician from "way back" when tracing signals with an oscilloscope, soldering components onto circuit boards was a daily occurrence, that thrill of troubleshooting a problem has never left me (unlike my eyesight).

Alas, your advice is the appropriate route...

 

You know, I just realized that my car stereo seems to do the same thing. Like I'll be listening to radio, and occasionally for a fraction of a second it will cut out. However, I've never noticed on my NAV screen whether or not it said I muted the stereo.

For me, though, it happens very infrequently.