I'm going to rant about this, so apologies in advance, but I wanted to know if this was common with the Fiat stereos in Mareas & Bravo/as.
My Marea came with a knackered Fiat cassette only stereo. I've got a nice, (if a little bit dated now) Sony head-unit with a 10-disc CD changer and a 'satellite' remote control for mounting on the steering column, sat in a box at home from one of my previous cars. I did seriously contemplate fitting this with one of those fascia units, but from the pics I'd seen of them, I wasn't impressed and so I bought a Fiat (Grundig) 158H (or is it 185H?) head units with a 6 CD changer second hand off ebay.
Apart from the seller leaving the cartridge in the CD changer which meant me dismantling the unit to extracate four of the CD 'holders' from the inner workings of it, everything seemed fine with it.
However, I'm getting a bit sick of it now. The radio has a habit of cutting the audio for a second (or longer) while it goes searching for RDS or TP stations and at the slightest sign of a dip of signal, it'll go searching off from Radio 1 (for example) and come back 5 mins later with Radio 2 or Radio 4! I've got so used to it doing this that I actually know where on my journey to work it'll happen! :bang:
I can get round it most times by pressing the preset button again to force it back onto the original station, but sometimes it'll come back with the audio muted, as though it's stuck. The only way to get it back is to switch the stereo off and back on again.
Also, (and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere but I thought I'd just confirm it), the stereo can only be switched on and off by pressing the power button rather than by turning the key in the ignition, which is the case in 99.999999% of all other cars ever produced. Is this correct?
Another problem seems to be with the CD player (although this could just be that the lens needs cleaning) whereby it'll just say 'SURFACE' on some CDs, mainly CDRs but also some original ones. If I keep selecting the same CD slot for a long period of time, it seems to work eventually, but it's pretty annoying.
Has anyone else experienced these types of problems or should I just stick it back on ebay and let someone else have the headache?
I'm seriously tempted to stick my Sony stereo in there even if it won't be as aesthetically pleasing as a genuine Fiat one.
My Marea came with a knackered Fiat cassette only stereo. I've got a nice, (if a little bit dated now) Sony head-unit with a 10-disc CD changer and a 'satellite' remote control for mounting on the steering column, sat in a box at home from one of my previous cars. I did seriously contemplate fitting this with one of those fascia units, but from the pics I'd seen of them, I wasn't impressed and so I bought a Fiat (Grundig) 158H (or is it 185H?) head units with a 6 CD changer second hand off ebay.
Apart from the seller leaving the cartridge in the CD changer which meant me dismantling the unit to extracate four of the CD 'holders' from the inner workings of it, everything seemed fine with it.
However, I'm getting a bit sick of it now. The radio has a habit of cutting the audio for a second (or longer) while it goes searching for RDS or TP stations and at the slightest sign of a dip of signal, it'll go searching off from Radio 1 (for example) and come back 5 mins later with Radio 2 or Radio 4! I've got so used to it doing this that I actually know where on my journey to work it'll happen! :bang:
I can get round it most times by pressing the preset button again to force it back onto the original station, but sometimes it'll come back with the audio muted, as though it's stuck. The only way to get it back is to switch the stereo off and back on again.
Also, (and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere but I thought I'd just confirm it), the stereo can only be switched on and off by pressing the power button rather than by turning the key in the ignition, which is the case in 99.999999% of all other cars ever produced. Is this correct?
Another problem seems to be with the CD player (although this could just be that the lens needs cleaning) whereby it'll just say 'SURFACE' on some CDs, mainly CDRs but also some original ones. If I keep selecting the same CD slot for a long period of time, it seems to work eventually, but it's pretty annoying.
Has anyone else experienced these types of problems or should I just stick it back on ebay and let someone else have the headache?
I'm seriously tempted to stick my Sony stereo in there even if it won't be as aesthetically pleasing as a genuine Fiat one.
