Okay, here's a weird one. Yesterday, the stereo in my '04 XJ8 began muting/unmuting itself randomly. This happens:

While driving
While sitting still (at a light, for example)
Quite often and rapidly
Might go a few songs with no muting, then mute itself and not unmute.

Pressing the Phone button, and either + or - Volume on the steering wheel will unmute, but it goes right back to doing this.

I don't think it's vibration related, nor heat related (it happened late in the afternoon yesterday @>100 degrees F outside, and this morning on the way to work @~76 degrees F).

Might possibly be a loose wire, either on steering column, or on stereo.

Bottom line: has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks.

 

Did you resolve this one? Was it "Muting" as in -20dB or just cutting out completely? In my 04 XJ8, the sound is now dead (not intermittent). I've had this car for about a month (it has 30k) and at the same time the audio went silent, the CDC also quit responding so I am thinking that this may be the culprit. I understand that the premium system use fiber optic digital transmission, so an intermittent open circuit could be a marginal connection of one of the optical fittings. Check the D2B fiber optic cable connection at the power amp and the CDC (both in the left side of the boot).
Good luck!

 

Well, not sure if it's resolved, but it hasn't happened in a few months. On a side note, it's interesting you mentioned the CDC; mine has gradually gone from occasionally stopping to full stop in the past month and a half. I went to the point of disassembling the changer, looking for obvious issues with gears, etc. No good.

I'm almost to the point of ripping out the sound system (it's the premium Alpine) and putting something with an AUX and BT in. This, for example. Only two things are stopping me. 1) the color of the display would be different from the climate control color; 2) I want it to look good, so finding a fascia plate that covers up the gap from the current system is required. Why do car manufacturers insist on non-DIN systems? My wife's Tahoe is the same way.