My '96 XJ6 has been quite trouble-free for some time now. Not completely, but significantly. Hence my lack of posting on the forum. But now something really annoying is happening.

The radio will make a loud "POP" noise, then cut out for a while. It might take a few minutes to come back, it might not come back for the rest of the drive. It will go a couple of weeks without doing this, or it might happen several times in one commute (which is when I give up and turn it off). When the radio is inoperative, the cassette is inoperative as well. It just flips sides over and over (I use the cassette adapter for my iPod).

Any ideas?

Yep, very common.

The original units were pone yo dry solder joints and the CD changer was thr first to miss out on signals.

Some have reported success with repairing the innards, I could not be bothered, and fitted a Pioneer with front USB, and removed the CD changer from thd boot.

I am having a similar problem, where the radio likes to get stuck on a station and no button will work. It did not want to shut off on a recent trip and the volume was on full blast, so I had the fuse pulled for now until I can figure out what to replace it with.