Radio Radio problems

KevinF · 19th November 2006, 11:38

Good morning folks -

Joined the forum just now and was not surprised to see a few threads about poorly performing radios - this, too, has been my experience with a 2.2 Sport bought in March.

I have started a new thread on the topic because I am interested in whether there is an identifiable pattern. Many of the previous posts complain generally of poor reception while others (fewer) observe that the AF function within RDS sometimes fails to tune to a stronger signal when the car is moving. I suspect they're all pointing up symptoms of the same basic problem. Allow me to explain.

I complained about the radio in our car within a fortnight of taking delivery and had it changed under warranty in April/May, but the replacement was little better. Like its predecessor, it is intermittently ignorant of the alternative frequencies available under the pre-set buttons and it often fails to re-tune, even though a far stronger signal of that particular broadcast is available and easily found if the scan button is pressed. The issue is particularly evident if the car is driven from one area to another with the radio off. Upon arrival, one can turn the radio on, press a pre-set, and be greeted with nothing but FM hiss. However, if one then 'forces' the radio to tune either up or down the frequency spectrum by pressing scan, it will find a perfectly good signal. This 'feature' is as far as I can tell independent of what pre-set one is pressing – in other words it can apply to all of them at various times. Just for the record, I have the logical BBC stations under pre-sets from 1-4 and Classic FM under 5.

RDS AF is not perfect and all car radios can occasionally be caught out and not immediately re-tune when reception quality drops off. However on every other radio I've used, pressing the appropriate pre-set forces immediately forces the AF function to make a search and re-tune. Not so with the Civic radio.

While a few of the problems reported on this forum may be down to faulty signal boosters or a duff connection between the radio and the window antenna, but I think that there is a fundamental design fault that afflicts ALL Civic radios: the unit is either incapable of decoding the alternative frequency information broadcast by the nearest transmitter, or is receiving it but is unable to act upon the information being provided.

Here's the test:
Turn on frequency display and note your strongest Radio 2 frequency (or 1, 3 or 4).
Tune to a weak Radio 2 (or 1, 3 or 4) signal.
Press and hold a pre-set button until the unit beeps and accepts the pre-set.
Wait until hell freezes over – your radio will not now automatically seek out to the strongest frequency for the station you have selected.

At my local dealer, Fish Brothers in Swindon, the workshop supervisor witnessed for himself this failure to automatically change frequency, and he was able to replicate the fault on my vehicle and, subsequently, on another Civic that was in for service. I have personally tried the same trick on 3 other Civics recently and they too exhibited identical symptoms.

Honda's customer care people told me that they were aware of 'a problem' and that the radio manufacturer was sending a team from Japan to 'investigate the UK's unique radio environment.' I personally think they're in denial. There is nothing special about the UK – just ask Blaupunkt, Sony et. al.

My guess is it's a glorious *ock-up by the radio's manufacturer: either a generic fault in the design of the RDS chip they've used in the radio, or an error in the firmware that prevents the chip working as designed. Either way, it's not at all confidence inspiring. As I observed to Honda customer care, RDS has been available in the UK since the early 90s and it is farcical to have such a problem in 2006, let alone in a car costing just shy of 17k.

Regards to all.
KevinF.

Honda100 · 19th November 2006, 13:04

Kevin. A nice and clear precis of our problems.
We wait in hope for the solution!
Have you seen the other thread about switching AFSEL off, which has resulted in an improvement for some?

Pottsy · 19th November 2006, 16:12

Kevin - welcome!

I have an EX and the radio works perfectly. The ability to hear weak stations is astonishing, possibly the best I've ever had (right up there with a £1000 Alpine). So I wonder if the problem is limited to non EX cars.

Here's a demo.

1. Go into diagnostic mode by pressing and holding (in order) 1, 6 and then press the power on button.

2. Press and hold FM for a few seconds to see the signal strength.

3. Tune R4 on 93.7 (strength 43 db).

4. After 20 seconds or so, the RDS AF re-tunes to 92.7 (strength 64 db).

If you try to tune a weak station (on mine about 17-22 db) where I get good hiss-free sound, but there's no RDS data, it will not re-tune because it doesn't know the AF frequencies.

Pottsy

Video of it in action (click on the play symbol)

KevinF · 19th November 2006, 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Honda100

Kevin. A nice and clear precis of our problems.
We wait in hope for the solution!
Have you seen the other thread about switching AFSEL off, which has resulted in an improvement for some?

Thanks. Yes. I have. It makes no differerence.

KevinF.

basegreen · 19th November 2006, 18:19

Does it get worse when you use the rear demisters?

KevinF · 19th November 2006, 18:23

Er, no. It gets no worse.

K.

Pottsy · 19th November 2006, 18:33

What signal strength do you get on a good station?

Parky · 19th November 2006, 19:02

I had the exact same issue with RDS not tuning in to the strongest signal, but I fixed.

I turned of the A-SEL function which when on prevents the RDS tuning from working. Since I turned it off the retuning has been working perfectly for me.

Ian

basegreen · 20th November 2006, 22:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinF

Er, no. It gets no worse.

K.

I know someone whose radio almost stops working altogether when the rear demister things are on.

czechplastik · 20th November 2006, 22:35

I've had no problems with me EX either Pottsy, maybe we're just lucky!

pcr · 22nd November 2006, 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinF

The issue is particularly evident if the car is driven from one area to another with the radio off. Upon arrival, one can turn the radio on, press a pre-set, and be greeted with nothing but FM hiss.

KevinF,
I wouldn't expect this to work because when turning the radio on, the signal is too weak for RDS data to be received, hence no AF.
Regards, pcr.

IWANTACIVIC · 27th November 2006, 06:15

touch wood no radio problems here ex as well but i not used radio much but the traffic repots come in nearly without fail.

Slim Boy Fat · 28th November 2006, 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pottsy

Kevin - welcome!

I have an EX and the radio works perfectly. The ability to hear weak stations is astonishing, possibly the best I've ever had (right up there with a £1000 Alpine). So I wonder if the problem is limited to non EX cars.

Here's a demo.

1. Go into diagnostic mode by pressing and holding (in order) 1, 6 and then press the power on button.

2. Press and hold FM for a few seconds to see the signal strength.

3. Tune R4 on 93.7 (strength 43 db).

4. After 20 seconds or so, the RDS AF re-tunes to 92.7 (strength 64 db).

If you try to tune a weak station (on mine about 17-22 db) where I get good hiss-free sound, but there's no RDS data, it will not re-tune because it doesn't know the AF frequencies.

Pottsy

Got to agree with you there Pottsy, did the same as you. Tuned to 93.7 (strength 30-35 db) within about 20 secs radio had retuned to 92.9 (strength 60-65 db). I have an EX too if that helps.

elfa7 · 28th November 2006, 16:29

My EX radio also works fine.

al_reidy · 12th December 2006, 21:16

hmm i did not have this problem until my radio was replaced under warranty for randomly being silent when using the radio (not the cd), now i have a new radio it seems like ive got the same "fault" as KevinF.
is it just that they might not have pushed the ariel fully back into the radio when they fitted it? i also have a sport 2.2.

joora · 13th December 2006, 00:36

I don't know how, but my civic's radio picks up stations from stations faaar far away (some are from other countries!). I have yet to meet it's match.

geoff · 13th December 2006, 06:54

Coming back from france recently in northern france radio 2 worked fine get of the boat at dover and for a least 20 mins the radio would not find anything but french stations i turned it off used the cd next time i turned it on it was back to normal (which is only so so)
I think it must be a software problem or maybe i should move to france

Still like driving the civic

Just wish honda would fix the design faults

Honda100 · 13th December 2006, 08:21

My radio reception is really poor when I use the rear window demister. It is going in on Monday for some warranty work of which this is one.
Following all the various 'poor radio' threads it would appear that the EX does not exhibit the same problems as other models, such as the ES. Perhaps they are wired differently due to the presence of the sat nav?

chillicat · 13th December 2006, 08:23

Geoff, couldn't agree more about Honda fixing the design faults. The most worrying thing about the Civic, and the radio issue is typical, is the inconsistency of the problems. Now I know that many people will have had no problems or make allowances and that by the very nature of people more faults are likely to get posted on forums such as this but having looked at some other forums this one does seem to have a lot of problems posted on it.
My problems;
Drivers window developing mind of its own
Gearbox - 2nd and 3rd falling out with each other - replaced
Dampers - Relieving themselves over my drive - replaced
Colour - Galaxy grey - It was like expecting Kylie and getting Sue Pollard, brochure suggested nice gunmetal what I've got is taupe.
Passenger seat base detaching itself from frame.
Instability under braking
Inconsistent performance and MPG
Radio
HFT and voice activation microphone sited for LHD cars which is partly why it doesn't work properly.
Fuel filler flap
Every possible combination of creak, squeak, rattle, buzz, clonk at various times and sometimes all together.

The worst thing about it all is that its made me a bad driver, because I'm so fed up with the car I don't care if I kerb the wheels or that one of the mirrors is held on my duct tape, or the oil light is on (again) or the service should have been done ages ago etc, etc.

All Honda had to do when they had the car back at the factory for a month was admit to & fix some of the problems noy just give it a clean and a polish.

Honda100 · 18th December 2006, 19:45

My car went in for some warranty issues today, the radio included. Luckily the garage was able to replicate my problems, including the TP icon disappearing when cold and the poor reception with the heated rear windscreen on.
I am now advised that the poor reception is possibly due to a secondary cable, which runs down the passenger side A pillar being trapped behind the dash/radio. They have to order the part and will fit it at the same time as my iPod link to save taking the dash apart twice.

19th November 2006, 11:38	#1 (permalink)
KevinF Supporter Wheelnut Join Date: 19th November 2006 Location: Hungerford, UK Posts: 81 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Radio problems Good morning folks - Joined the forum just now and was not surprised to see a few threads about poorly performing radios - this, too, has been my experience with a 2.2 Sport bought in March. I have started a new thread on the topic because I am interested in whether there is an identifiable pattern. Many of the previous posts complain generally of poor reception while others (fewer) observe that the AF function within RDS sometimes fails to tune to a stronger signal when the car is moving. I suspect they're all pointing up symptoms of the same basic problem. Allow me to explain. I complained about the radio in our car within a fortnight of taking delivery and had it changed under warranty in April/May, but the replacement was little better. Like its predecessor, it is intermittently ignorant of the alternative frequencies available under the pre-set buttons and it often fails to re-tune, even though a far stronger signal of that particular broadcast is available and easily found if the scan button is pressed. The issue is particularly evident if the car is driven from one area to another with the radio off. Upon arrival, one can turn the radio on, press a pre-set, and be greeted with nothing but FM hiss. However, if one then 'forces' the radio to tune either up or down the frequency spectrum by pressing scan, it will find a perfectly good signal. This 'feature' is as far as I can tell independent of what pre-set one is pressing – in other words it can apply to all of them at various times. Just for the record, I have the logical BBC stations under pre-sets from 1-4 and Classic FM under 5. RDS AF is not perfect and all car radios can occasionally be caught out and not immediately re-tune when reception quality drops off. However on every other radio I've used, pressing the appropriate pre-set forces immediately forces the AF function to make a search and re-tune. Not so with the Civic radio. While a few of the problems reported on this forum may be down to faulty signal boosters or a duff connection between the radio and the window antenna, but I think that there is a fundamental design fault that afflicts ALL Civic radios: the unit is either incapable of decoding the alternative frequency information broadcast by the nearest transmitter, or is receiving it but is unable to act upon the information being provided. Here's the test: Turn on frequency display and note your strongest Radio 2 frequency (or 1, 3 or 4). Tune to a weak Radio 2 (or 1, 3 or 4) signal. Press and hold a pre-set button until the unit beeps and accepts the pre-set. Wait until hell freezes over – your radio will not now automatically seek out to the strongest frequency for the station you have selected. At my local dealer, Fish Brothers in Swindon, the workshop supervisor witnessed for himself this failure to automatically change frequency, and he was able to replicate the fault on my vehicle and, subsequently, on another Civic that was in for service. I have personally tried the same trick on 3 other Civics recently and they too exhibited identical symptoms. Honda's customer care people told me that they were aware of 'a problem' and that the radio manufacturer was sending a team from Japan to 'investigate the UK's unique radio environment.' I personally think they're in denial. There is nothing special about the UK – just ask Blaupunkt, Sony et. al. My guess is it's a glorious ock-up by the radio's manufacturer: either a generic fault in the design of the RDS chip they've used in the radio, or an error in the firmware that prevents the chip working as designed. Either way, it's not at all confidence inspiring. As I observed to Honda customer care, RDS has been available in the UK since the early 90s and it is farcical to have such a problem in 2006, let alone in a car costing just shy of 17k. Regards to all. KevinF. Last edited by Pottsy; 19th November 2006 at 15:19. Reason: Increased font size*

19th November 2006, 18:23	#6 (permalink)
KevinF Supporter Wheelnut Join Date: 19th November 2006 Location: Hungerford, UK Posts: 81 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	REar desmisters Er, no. It gets no worse. K.

13th December 2006, 06:54	#17 (permalink)
geoff Supporter Magic Rear Seat Join Date: 20th May 2006 Posts: 531 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	French Stations Coming back from france recently in northern france radio 2 worked fine get of the boat at dover and for a least 20 mins the radio would not find anything but french stations i turned it off used the cd next time i turned it on it was back to normal (which is only so so) I think it must be a software problem or maybe i should move to france Still like driving the civic Just wish honda would fix the design faults

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This thread is about: Radio problems, it's in Ipods, MP3 Players and ICE at the Honda Civic forum Civinfo; Good morning folks - Joined the forum just now and was not surprised to see a few threads about poorly performing radios - this, too, ...

19th November 2006, 13:04	#2 (permalink)
Honda100 Supporter Triangular Exhaust Join Date: 31st May 2006 Location: Stockport Posts: 236 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Kevin. A nice and clear precis of our problems. We wait in hope for the solution! Have you seen the other thread about switching AFSEL off, which has resulted in an improvement for some?

19th November 2006, 16:12	#3 (permalink)
Pottsy Administrator Civinfo guru Join Date: 10th April 2006 Location: Leics Posts: 4,668 Thanks: 3 Thanked 51 Times in 25 Posts	Kevin - welcome! I have an EX and the radio works perfectly. The ability to hear weak stations is astonishing, possibly the best I've ever had (right up there with a £1000 Alpine). So I wonder if the problem is limited to non EX cars. Here's a demo. 1. Go into diagnostic mode by pressing and holding (in order) 1, 6 and then press the power on button. 2. Press and hold FM for a few seconds to see the signal strength. 3. Tune R4 on 93.7 (strength 43 db). 4. After 20 seconds or so, the RDS AF re-tunes to 92.7 (strength 64 db). If you try to tune a weak station (on mine about 17-22 db) where I get good hiss-free sound, but there's no RDS data, it will not re-tune because it doesn't know the AF frequencies. Pottsy Video of it in action (click on the play symbol)

19th November 2006, 18:19	#5 (permalink)
basegreen Super Moderator Civinfo guru Join Date: 15th April 2006 Location: noitacoL Posts: 2,864 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Does it get worse when you use the rear demisters?

19th November 2006, 18:33	#7 (permalink)
Pottsy Administrator Civinfo guru Join Date: 10th April 2006 Location: Leics Posts: 4,668 Thanks: 3 Thanked 51 Times in 25 Posts	What signal strength do you get on a good station?

19th November 2006, 19:02	#8 (permalink)
Parky Triangular Exhaust Join Date: 4th July 2006 Posts: 304 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I had the exact same issue with RDS not tuning in to the strongest signal, but I fixed. I turned of the A-SEL function which when on prevents the RDS tuning from working. Since I turned it off the retuning has been working perfectly for me. Ian

20th November 2006, 22:35	#10 (permalink)
czechplastik King of the rodeo Civinfo guru Join Date: 24th October 2006 Location: Belfast Posts: 4,492 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I've had no problems with me EX either Pottsy, maybe we're just lucky!

27th November 2006, 06:15	#12 (permalink)
IWANTACIVIC Supporter Magic Rear Seat Join Date: 16th September 2006 Location: LINCS UK Posts: 658 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	touch wood no radio problems here ex as well but i not used radio much but the traffic repots come in nearly without fail.

28th November 2006, 16:29	#14 (permalink)
elfa7 Supporter Rocketship door handle Join Date: 8th May 2006 Location: Cheshire Posts: 1,700 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	My EX radio also works fine.

12th December 2006, 21:16	#15 (permalink)
al_reidy Valve Cap Join Date: 6th December 2006 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	hmm i did not have this problem until my radio was replaced under warranty for randomly being silent when using the radio (not the cd), now i have a new radio it seems like ive got the same "fault" as KevinF. is it just that they might not have pushed the ariel fully back into the radio when they fitted it? i also have a sport 2.2.

13th December 2006, 00:36	#16 (permalink)
joora Wheelnut Join Date: 11th September 2006 Location: Croatia Posts: 72 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I don't know how, but my civic's radio picks up stations from stations faaar far away (some are from other countries!). I have yet to meet it's match.

13th December 2006, 08:21	#18 (permalink)
Honda100 Supporter Triangular Exhaust Join Date: 31st May 2006 Location: Stockport Posts: 236 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	My radio reception is really poor when I use the rear window demister. It is going in on Monday for some warranty work of which this is one. Following all the various 'poor radio' threads it would appear that the EX does not exhibit the same problems as other models, such as the ES. Perhaps they are wired differently due to the presence of the sat nav?

13th December 2006, 08:23	#19 (permalink)
chillicat Valve Cap Join Date: 22nd November 2006 Posts: 29 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Geoff, couldn't agree more about Honda fixing the design faults. The most worrying thing about the Civic, and the radio issue is typical, is the inconsistency of the problems. Now I know that many people will have had no problems or make allowances and that by the very nature of people more faults are likely to get posted on forums such as this but having looked at some other forums this one does seem to have a lot of problems posted on it. My problems; Drivers window developing mind of its own Gearbox - 2nd and 3rd falling out with each other - replaced Dampers - Relieving themselves over my drive - replaced Colour - Galaxy grey - It was like expecting Kylie and getting Sue Pollard, brochure suggested nice gunmetal what I've got is taupe. Passenger seat base detaching itself from frame. Instability under braking Inconsistent performance and MPG Radio HFT and voice activation microphone sited for LHD cars which is partly why it doesn't work properly. Fuel filler flap Every possible combination of creak, squeak, rattle, buzz, clonk at various times and sometimes all together. The worst thing about it all is that its made me a bad driver, because I'm so fed up with the car I don't care if I kerb the wheels or that one of the mirrors is held on my duct tape, or the oil light is on (again) or the service should have been done ages ago etc, etc. All Honda had to do when they had the car back at the factory for a month was admit to & fix some of the problems noy just give it a clean and a polish.

18th December 2006, 19:45	#20 (permalink)
Honda100 Supporter Triangular Exhaust Join Date: 31st May 2006 Location: Stockport Posts: 236 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	My car went in for some warranty issues today, the radio included. Luckily the garage was able to replicate my problems, including the TP icon disappearing when cold and the poor reception with the heated rear windscreen on. I am now advised that the poor reception is possibly due to a secondary cable, which runs down the passenger side A pillar being trapped behind the dash/radio. They have to order the part and will fit it at the same time as my iPod link to save taking the dash apart twice.