I've had my car since June. My radio has cut out probably 10 times. this only occurs when i switch the modes. I drive the car daily and often switch from cd to diff. radio stations. after switching from cd to radio it may cut out. It often comes back if I turn the radio completely on and off.
Yesterday, even this didn't work. It took a good 2 min. to get it back on again. It acted like a windows blue screen of death, kind of like the processor controlling the functions froze. Has anyone else experienced this? This will be almost impossible to get it to repeat for the dealer. I 've heard only of one other owner that mentioned this in some other post.

 

I've not had that happen. One time the entire display was blank even though the stereo was on. The problem went away as soon as I rebooted ... er, restarted the car.

Had a couple of times that the HVAC kept putting itself in DUAL mode even though I was the only one in the car and kept disabling DUAL mode.

Are we sure Microsoft is not heavily involved here?

 

LOL,

The only audio thing I have noticed is that my CD player does not read text on all CD's (even one the wife bought last night). The other thing is a pause when I skip tracks in MP3 mode. I think that has more to do with the iPod interface though.

 

I've had it happen at least twice. As I scroll through the modes when it comes to the radio - no sound comes out. I can't remember exactly what I did to get it back - but it did fairly easily. I couldn't recreate it either so I didn't do anything about it, and it hasn't happened for a couple months now.

 

Argh...I delurked and registered because this very issue has turned into a Big Deal for me. Bought my non-nav TCH back in September, and had the dealership install the OEM XM radio for $399. Every once in a while, if I turned off the stereo, when I turned it back on I would have no sound. The display would show up all right: song name if XM, track number if CD, etc., but there would be no sound coming out of the speakers. Ok, annoying, but no biggie, I just made sure not to turn the stereo off. I never experienced a problem switching between modes.

Second week of December, for no reason, the car suddenly wasn't recognizing that the XM unit was even installed...toggling through the modes only got me radio and CD options, no more XM. I took it in the Friday before New Years, the dealership pulled it out and replaced it, and told me it was a bad module.

Last night...everything was working fine when I parked and turned off the car. When I came back out and started the car later, the stereo was turned off. When I turned it back on, the car was again not recognizing the XM, AND I no longer have ANY audio whatsoever. Again the display readout is fine (except that the XM is gone), but no audio at all. Attempting to adjust the volume, it gets "stuck" at 24. I tried turning on/off the car and the stereo multiple times, with no luck. My hour commute in silence this morning wasn't fun.

I've already called the dealership, and am taking it in tonight...I'll let you all know what they have to say. I was hoping this may have been an isolated problem/bug in my car, but it sounds like others are experiencing it to varying degrees too.

 

I have had the same problem on my non-nav radio - switching to AUX mode and no sound. Even when I switch back to FM it is dead. Turn radio off for several minutes seems to be only solution when it happens.

 

I have a 1hr commute each way so I'm constantly changing the modes on my non-NAV radio... all combinations of FM1 to AM to CD to AUX, and by next week I'll have XM too... and I have never had this problem. I use both the headunit buttons as well as the MODE button on the steering wheel. I would have your service dept take a look at it, that way at least your complaint is registered in the system well before the warranty expires.

fyi - my car was a july06 build. Maybe there was a bad batch of headunits used in the earlier builds?

 

In auto-mode when serious heat is required (it's below freezing here now), the climate control will always select dual. If I shut it off, it comes back on in a few minutes. I did not have the issue using auto for cooling. Mildly annoying.

Other than that and the auto-recirc setting, that is the only annoying issues I've had with the center console controls in general.

Jan 22 Update: I discovered why the HVAC kept going into DUAL mode by itself. One day sitting in a drive thru donut line I watched as the passender side kept moving up and down 1 setting in temp every few seconds. Turning DUAL off would of course turn back on as soon as the passenger temp changed again. It looked like the passenger temp know was in between "clicks". I moved the dial to make sure it was centered between clicks and no more auto DUAL.

 

Just wanted to update all of you on this issue. I took the car in and they assured me that replacing the radio (JBL head unit) would take care of the problem. An hour later, I'm told that replacing the radio didn't fix the problem, but that the replacement radio worked fine (tested in another vehicle) until they put it in my car. The tech working on my car was completely baffled and couldn't figure out the problem, no record in the Toyota service database of this problem either. This was a Thursday night, and Toyota tech support was evidently closed for the evening, so they called first thing Friday morning, and finally got a response Tuesday morning. Tech support said there is a spring in the trunk that is arcing/causing interference with the wires and the amplifier (?!?) so I was to bring it back in and it would be a ten-minute fix. Toyota tech told my service department that would take care of it, and that they've gotten several complaints about this recently, but adjusting the spring fixes everything.
So, this past Friday, I had the car there at 7:30am, ready for my ten-minute fix. My father came along with me, as we were going to run some errands afterwards. TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS LATER...after my father (who worked for 30 years in automotive QI, including working w/ Toyota) went out and gave the service department hell, we had an answer. In my case, the spring in the trunk was adjusted, but it didn't fix the problem. They ripped out the OEM XM receiver (under the back seat), replaced it and the cable to the head unit, and voila, everything works.
The tech tried to tell us that they'd never experienced that problem before, but then contradicted himself by saying that they knew the OEM XM manufacturer had sent out a huge batch of bad receivers and they'd just replaced one in a car the day previous! Soooo....in case anyone else encounters this problem, and has the OEM XM receiver, you may want to point your service dept in this direction. This problem had been an ongoing one for me since December 10th.
On an unrelated note, in that two-and-a-half hours, the service department completely forgot that I was the owner of the car, and assured my father they'd mail HIM the paperwork, gave HIM a free oil change/tire rotation, and handed HIM the fob (yes, I was standing right there). Despite the fact I'd been in there at least six times in two months dealing with the same problem, and that I'm a 27-year-old woman, not some kid with their first car! Needless to say, after I get my free oil change, I'm taking my business to a different dealership!
I'm sorry some of the details are a little vague, but the techs were talking in circles and contradicting themselves until I was confused too. If anyone is interested in further details, let me know and I'll post the explanation from the paperwork when I get it (unless they mail it to my father first!)

 

Wow sounds like a rough experience. Did you have this work done at the dealer you purchased the car from? I guess the bright side of this is you no longer have to worry about this problem...hopefully