The radio reception in my 02' TL-S has recently gone to shit and I can't figure out why. Last Friday when I got in the car the stations that I normally pick-up were really bad reception wise and it hasn't gotten any better. I live in Northern Virginia and I can barely pick up DC101...which if you live around here know that is bad when you can't pick up that station. It has a very strong signal.

Anyway...I check around the headunit and the antenna connection in the rear is fine, and nothing looks out of place in the rear window. What in the hell could be causing this to happen?

BTW: Stock head unit..no navigation

 

I believe your car has an FM amp to boost signal off of the window antenna.

Have you added any aftermarket amp?

Class D amps jam that amp often.

 

The entire system is stock, but with that I am not to familiar with its functionality as far as the Bose system wiring. Could it be possible that this FM amp has lost its power to boost the signal off the window antenna? I had my battery replaced last Monday at the dealership, and that could have a direct affect to I think.

 

do you have metalllic tint? b/c i heard that can mess up the reception....

 

Yea I read that in another thread, but no I do not have metallic tint. I guess I'm just so confused because it happened all of a sudden. I called the dealer but I don't think I'm up to paying their fees just to check it out at this point. I want to keep checking to see before I send it in to them

 

It happened right after they changed the battery? Hm, you checked the settings on the headunit. I know I started having bad reception here after the big T-storm we had here.

 

Which settings are you referring to? I reset my stations and sound parameters to my liking and it worked fine for 4 days. Then Friday afternoon when I got in the car to go play golf it was bad.

Could this amp that throws the signal to the rear antenna have gone bad or surged randomly?

 

It could have gone bad, yes... the HU throws power to it to turn it on and I think that is shared with the amp, so you'd have no audio if it weren't getting power from the HU.

 

I see. Well I have audio and CD's work perfect still, and I still pick up some stations just not ones I am partial to listening to.

I guess I'll see what the dealership wants to charge to look at it. I just don't want to pay them x amount of dollars to fix it when I could use the money to upgrade to a nice aftermarket head unit. I had Alpine in all my Integra's and loved em' so I'm step up and get another.

 

Did you add any window tint? Not just metallic. Any at all?

 

Yes there is 20% from the previous owner on the car, its not metallic-just crappy dark tint. I am aware of the discussion about tint causing problems, however would it just happen all of a sudden like that?

 

No, it would not. You need to have the FM amp checked by a pro with a wiring diagram - in other words,probably at the dealer.

 

Werd! It wouldn't just happen out of no where. Sounds like you have sometype of fm amp issue. Did you add any other electronics that might be messin with the signal?

 

I figured that is what I was going to have to do, but I wanted to check around first to see if anyone else might have some insight. Sucks that dealers usually charge out the wazzu for electrical checks. I am guess that FM amp fried somehow when the battery was replaced.

Also there are no other electronics except Nextel cell phone which isn't hard wired, and it still does it even if I don't have the phone in the car. If anyone else has Nextel they know when in coming calls are coming becasue the radio gets stetchy for a couple seconds before it rings because of the direct connect signal in the phone