Car radio switching stations?

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NewbieDebbie
Car radio switching stations?

I have a factory-installed radio in my car. It's less than a year old. Every so often, the station changes by itself. At first, I thought maybe something was wrong with the Scan button, like maybe it was sticking. But it seems to jump only one number up, and it almost never is the number of an actual radio station. It's just fuzz. Any idea what may be wrong?

Matt Whitlock (not verified)
Hmmm... Does your car have

Hmmm... Does your car have station tuning buttons on the steering wheel? Perhaps you're bumping the tune button while driving...

If not, demonic possesion cannot be ruled out.

Anyone have any ideas?

Steven Jones (not verified)
This is so weird. In my car,

This is so weird. In my car, I am using an FM transmitter built into one of my shiny gadgets to listen over an unused channel.

On several occasions over the past few months, the radio has repeatedly (and quite mysteriously) changed to another station. I am pretty sure it was landing on a preset station but it happened so many times, I can assure you I was not hitting the steering wheel controls.

I chalked it up to demonic possession actually, but now you got me thinking maybe its something else.

NewbieDebbie
No, there are no tuning

No, there are no tuning buttons on the steering wheel. The buttons are far enough away from the steering wheel that I know I couldn't accidentally be bumping any of them.

I'm thinking it could be demonic possesion.

NewbieDebbie
All right. My car is about

All right. My car is about due for an oil change, so I think I'm going to kill a couple of birds with one stone. I'll bring it in to the dealer and ask them to check out the radio problem. The radio problem would still be under warranty, so hopefully they'll fix it.

Anyone have any idea on what to expect? I hate going in to a dealer shop or a fix-it shop without having any idea what I'm talking about. And since this problem is so intermittent (it might happen 3 times in one week, and then it won't happen at all for several weeks), there's a good chance that the problem won't happen if they test the radio themselves.

If they replace the radio (I don't know if that's likely), I assume that it would fix the problem. Does it seem like it could be some sort of electrical short problem? Or could it be something wrong with the antenna (which is embedded in the rear window)? Or is it too difficult to guess, since this is such a weird issue?

Thanks!

Matt Whitlock (not verified)
A short would probably turn

A short would probably turn off the radio, not change stations. Replacing it may actually do the trick. Let us know what happens when you take it in, and what they do to correct it.

no1txgurl
did anyone figure this out?

did anyone figure this out? This started happening to me about two months ago, irritates the heck out of me!

Steveg29
Same issue. Goes up one

Same issue. Goes up one channel then back down most the time wtf

namaste
This is happening to me too.

This is happening to me too. At first it was only occasionally, but it has gotten worse. This morning, it was so bad that I had to turn the radio off. I have a 2004 Volvo S60.

KD
Everything works on my car

Everything works on my car radio and CD player but it won't switch stations and there is no sound. Any ideas why that would happen?

Zann
I'm driving a rental car this

I'm driving a rental car this week, a Chrysler 200, and about every other time I make a 90-degree right turn, the radio will switch stations. Never had that happen in any other car. Freaked me out the first few times, but now it's just funny.

tulasbobt
I know this is an old thread
I know this is an old thread but I can tell you what it is and it's not your car. It's something called RDS which is the radio subcarrier that sends the song title and artist to your radio. There is a built in ability for radio stations with multiple frequencies to switch the radio to a stronger signal automatically. Unfortunately many radio station engineers do not set it up correctly and it wreaks havoc on people's radios. If you car switches on it's own and it's always from the same station, call that station and tell their engineer to turn off their RDS setting that allows alternate frequencies. This will solve your problem. It can also happen if two or more stations buy the same model RDS encoder and plugin it in "out of the box" without setting it up properly. They collife with each other. demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cztP9VJX0U   link to send your radio station: https://nabpilot.org/fm-broadcasters-need-to-make-sure-that-rds-pi-codes...   Bob 35 year broadcaster
 

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