Strange car stereo problem

[mikerog]

Hello,

I have a 2003 Civic Coupe EX. When I first bought it in 2003 I replaced the car stereo with a Sony in-dash receiver. It worked great up until I upgraded to a newer unit in 2011.

Starting earlier this year the buttons on the receiver stopped working so I just assumed the unit was dead and bought a new one. I bought the Sony DSXA400BT. I had Best Buy install it but it was acting very weird - the buttons on the receiver itself and the remote weren't working in sync, if you turned the car on the first one you used would work and they other wouldn't (ie: press a button on the receiver, the remote wouldn't work until the next time you turned the car on). Also, suspiciously, my car battery died a few days after installation.

Best Buy told me the unit must have been bad. So I RMAd it with Sony and the one they sent me did the exact same thing. So I thought maybe this model just must be incompatible with my car (Crutchfield said it was compatible).

So I bought a Pioneer DEH-X6900BT and installed it last week. It seemed to be working great. Until last night when I took a car ride longer than 10 minutes. About 20 minutes in the LCD started flipping through settings on its own and the buttons on the receiver and the remote both stopped working! Same thing happened on my car ride back, 20 minutes or so into the trip.

I'm not even sure where to start to troubleshoot this. Clearly it's the car and not the receiver. What part in the car needs to be checked? I have a brand new battery I put in when the other one that was only 2 years old died after putting in the first Sony DSXA400BT receiver (mentioned above).

One thing I should mention....my airbag was recalled and I brought it to Honda in January to get repaired and this issue started almost immediately after. Could they have screwed something up?

Thanks so much for any help!

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[BOOMINGRANDPA 5,000+ posts]

only think i can thing of is maybe wire loose or it needs better ground.. @TRaGiK has a civic maybe he knows something, never know he may pop up..

 

[TRaGiK 10+ year member]

I can't think of a single thing in the car that would cause those issues.

 

[shredder1 10+ year member]

I kept reading and re-reading the problem... Walking away, then it would bug me again so I'd reread it all over... Are you sure there isn't some Kryptonite involved?.. LOL!

I googled the high points of your problem and saw what advice you're getting already...

So I believe that pretty much you're back to basics here unless the initial install hacked the harness somehow or every deck has had an harness adapter fabricated in a rush just to get the job out!... it IS possible that the tech that did the airbag work may have caused something but I cannot see for the life of me what that could be...

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Hello,
I have a 2003 Civic Coupe EX. When I first bought it in 2003 I replaced the car stereo with a Sony in-dash receiver. It worked great up until I upgraded to a newer unit in 2011.

Starting earlier this year the buttons on the receiver stopped working so I just assumed the unit was dead and bought a new one. I bought the Sony DSXA400BT. I had Best Buy install it but it was acting very weird - the buttons on the receiver itself and the remote weren't working in sync, if you turned the car on the first one you used would work and they other wouldn't (ie: press a button on the receiver, the remote wouldn't work until the next time you turned the car on). Also, suspiciously, my car battery died a few days after installation.

Best Buy told me the unit must have been bad. So I RMAd it with Sony and the one they sent me did the exact same thing. So I thought maybe this model just must be incompatible with my car (Crutchfield said it was compatible).

So I bought a Pioneer DEH-X6900BT and installed it last week. It seemed to be working great. Until last night when I took a car ride longer than 10 minutes. About 20 minutes in the LCD started flipping through settings on its own and the buttons on the receiver and the remote both stopped working! Same thing happened on my car ride back, 20 minutes or so into the trip.

I'm not even sure where to start to troubleshoot this. Clearly it's the car and not the receiver. What part in the car needs to be checked? I have a brand new battery I put in when the other one that was only 2 years old died after putting in the first Sony DSXA400BT receiver (mentioned above).

One thing I should mention....my airbag was recalled and I brought it to Honda in January to get repaired and this issue started almost immediately after. Could they have screwed something up?

Thanks so much for any help!

This sentence is the most important part of this issue. Because if the problem did start after the airbag was replaced, then someone/something is interfering with it OR a wire got pulled/tugged alongside with the HU harness. If your able to, do some troubleshooting and see if you can tackle down the issue. But...be careful with the airbag. It's best to remove battery cables from the battery 1st before unplugging the airbag, if you get to that part.