Base radio, no nav, st wheel ctrl w/phone ctrls no phone

My radio is stuck on 87.9FM. The volume and speakers work with consistency. After clearing codes there has been a few times that I was able to set the clock, tune to a local station and even eject the prior owners CD.
But the rest of the tune the volume control works and nothing else, and the blacklight is significantly dimmer than the heater control. With a scan tool I am able to see that most oif the buttons will display active when pressed and inactive when not in use......with the exception of radio station preset button 1,2,3 and 6 which all show active all of the time. I suspect that because the radio sees these buttons as being pressed it is keeping it from performing other functions. This is not a radio code needed from dealer issue. My question is does the radio have some sort of reset feature? The car sat for over a year because the last owner couldn't find anyone to get it out of restricted performance mode. I scanned it and inspected all of the wiring for the codes o pulled and ended up replacing l ock sensor 2 and the car runs perfectly with 86k mi on it. It's possible that the radio buttons are stuck from sitting but I have no found any corrosion during any of my other repairs or diagnostic work. The buttons look and feel and operate as they should.....other than reporting active on 4 of them that aren't being pressed. Any help would be appreciated very much. This car has 3 fuse boxes. Under hood, in trunk and right side of passenger foot well. Thanks for reading my post and have a great day.

 

I have done some reading on this site about this radio ans it's Mute button issue amd where one member had taken apart the radio to clean it in an attempt to restore his radios issues only to end up with more problems than he started with. Until reading that I kinda thought that would be a worse case scenario, to have to disassemble the unit. Of course now I'm hesitant to do that. It seems like if I found 3 or 4 people all.saying they had very similar issues in a couple threads here it seems like enough vehicles would be affected for Jaguar to have figured it out and released a TSB to its dealers even if it was informational only.

 

Might be worth a gamble on a replacement unit. eBay is a great source for parts like that. Guys yank out the stock unit to install the latest high-tech version, and off-load the original unit for cheap.

 

I have, of course, considered that. RockAuto sells a dash mount kit for the S-Type so that it can be upgraded to something modern.....but I've read that I may have to run new speaker wires as this car may have fiber optic speaker wires.

I prefer to repair things rather than replace them if possible. This FETM unit seems to cause enough problems that it must have been solver by someone and I thought this was a likely place to discover the solution.

I wonder if the Crown Vic guys have this radio and problem?

 

I agree with Karl! Again!
I would just replace with a more modern unit? Your car is now 20+ years old and all factory radios are of the cheapest quality. Any used one will also be old and near the end of it's life.
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I think Karl is saying that a crapshoot on a used unit from eBay might to an acceptable risk, given that they are usually pretty cheap. Perhaps he can clarify...

 

See my personal motto in my sig:

"As little as possible, as long as it takes!"

This has served me well in all aspects of my life.

FWIW, the original factory stereo system in my '02 has held up just fine for over 20 years of near-daily use. Is it the latest and greatest hi-tech system? Would it satisfy a true audiophile? Of course not. Is it thoroughly adequate for a cranky old man who has spent too many years working around jet engines? Yep.

Would a $60 used unit on eBay be in similar serviceable condition? Probably, especially if it was removed years ago and sat on a shelf all this time.

Two main factors that take a toll on old electronics:

1) Capacitor failure, typically swelling. This is fairly easy to spot with a visual inspection. Replacement is usually not too difficult if handy with a soldering iron.

2) Cold solder joints. These will have a dull or grainy appearance. Harder to spot, but easily repaired by reflowing the solder.

Could you disassemble the existing stereo unit and hopefully find/repair the faults? I've had mixed results trying this. Not going to stop you if that's the route you want to go. But given the chance to spend your time and money, I'm more than willing to gamble $60 of your hard-earned money on a used unit. Or swap in a used unit and repair the old unit to keep as a spare.