Hello All,
This is for a 2003 XJR-R1 with the Alpine system with navigation and all that jazz. It was working perfectly and then suddenly I have the following extremely odd symptoms. Examples are when playing a CD, since I can't hear anything in the radio:
- You can hear the music that's playing, but in short burst intervals as if it were behind a large fan and you could only hear sound between the fan blades.
- There is a constant static fluttering sound that pans from the left side to the right side at about 2 second intervals.
- This continues when the car is fully keyed off.
- The amp in the boot has its fan on constantly, so I have pulled the fuse to the amplifier section of the stereo (the 30-amp fuse, I think it was #12) to keep it from draining the battery while parked.

When this all happened, it happened as the car was starting or between starts. Not while driving and using the stereo.
Also the first drive after this happened, I thought I smelled a burnt electrical smell in the cabin for a few seconds. So I have this hunch that it's the head unit, not something in the amplifier stack in the boot.

I tried switching the amp out with the same from my wife's 2002 VDP, but it must be a different part number because the CD rack didn't make any sound when the battery was hooked up, and the CD rack wasn't even detected by the head unit. So that attempt at troubleshooting didn't work out for me.

If any of you have a good way to troubleshoot, or you already know what's up, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!

 

Before I even got to the burnt electrical smell, my thoughts were a diode or resistor has taken that long dirt nap. You can find an electrical repair shop, like ones that do alternators or radios, and ask them if they can diagnose it. I recommend diagnosis first since repairs can run more than for a used one. In that instance, there are a couple of cars being parted out in The Marketplace which may still have their radios cd/nav/amp setups. I'd buy the whole setup if you could. I suspect the amp may be a culprit in this as well as the radio.

As for the fan being on, if I recall correctly, mine came on with the head unit automatically. I haven't had mine in, in at least 10 yrs though and was the same Alpine Premium.

 

I got the alpine head unit, CD/amp/Nav unit, got all factory midrange speakers as well as New alpine s components.

 

Sent you a pm @Col. Sandurz

Update: I mentioned that when I swapped my wife's amplifier for mine, it didn't power up and the head unit didn't register that there was a CD player at all. I did, however, swap her whole stack (just a CD and amp, no Nav) and it did work in my car. So I know the problem is back there now.

My next question is, if I were to purchase another amp that came from a car with Nav & CD, is there some sort of security code that would prevent it from working with mine? I was baffled by the fact that her amp didn't work with my stack, but her whole stack did work with my head unit.

Thank you everyone for your time & help.

 

Generally the code thing, from what I've read, has been with the Euro models. The NA are just a switch between Std and Prem.

 

That's awesome to learn, thank you!