Weak FM radio reception in 2010 Prius?

I went back to my dealer and compared the AM/FM in another Prius
on the lot just like mine and the AM/FM was PERFECT. Mine is piss-poor. Frustrating... The dealer is going to swap out an exchange unit on my car for the second time soon. 50-50 chance it
will help...

 

Which radio do you have? I have the non-nav, non-JBL in a 2010 II. My AM and FM reception are both excellent.

The FM reception in the difficult Sierra Nevada foothills reception area is among the best I have heard in a car.

AM reception is also very good. There are TIS (Traffic Information Stations) on AM radio, usually at 530kHz or 1610kHz. These stations are limited to 10 Watts transmitting power and small antennas. From my home I can hear three of them, City of Roseville at 10 miles, Beale AFB at 19 miles and Sacramento Airport at 21 miles. The are all three very week and on top of eashother, but by listening a few minutes I can hear part of the message from each of them. Accessory or Power on with or without engine running makes no difference. There is no electronic noise from the car nearly as strong as those weak signals.

On the high end of the band, there is a 10kw AM station on 1640AM that is 91 miles away over a 1700 foot hill range as the crow flies. It is listenable with some natural background noise, accessory, power, engine on or off. In between stations on the high end of the band I do hear some some car generated noise, it is the same under any condition I tried but a very weak station like the one on 1640 completely drowns the noise out.

I realize this won't directly help the majority who have poor performing radios, but at least my experience and Scott's experience with the dealer's car tell you that some 2010 Prius radios work very well so there is no excuse for Toyota not fixing the problem.

 

Re:Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

In previous posts I wrote about poor AM-FM reception in my 2010
Prius, and I suspected an antenna connection problem, even though my "know-it-all" dealer just replaced the whole radio which did nothing.

I took the car to a second dealer and...they found that a MOUSE HAS CHEWED THRU THE ANTENNA CABLES IN THE UPHOLSTERY ABOVE THE
PASSENGER SIDE DOOR! I was right- radio was not getting antenna input. The dealer replaced the cables and now my reception is
PERFECT!

The bad news: This is NOT covered under warranty, so I paid $700
for the fix.

NOTE TO DEALERS: When customers tell you about problems with
their cars, DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS. DO SOME DIAGNOSTIC
TESTS FIRST. If my problem had been discovered in the beginning,
this whole issue would have been fixed TWO MONTHS AGO.

GOOD PREVENTIVE TIP: to keep mice out of the car, ALWAYS SET THE AIR RECIRCULATION BUTTON ON "CLOSED" when you park the car- especially in winter when mice want warm homes!

 

Re: Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

Doh! Well FWIW in this thread....I've found my brand new Prius has really good AM/FM reception. Toyota must have worked on this bug (as it seems as though it was the early G3s that are having problems). This is the first car I've had with XM radio, but so far I haven't been that impressed with the reception with it (and I think it's so cool that FM stations can now pull track texts). All in all, I like the whole Nav package.....but the other thing I'd like to see an improvement on is the search functions for a USB device.

I think that's the law of the land for any service. I have some stories to tell about my HOA's former landscaping company, as well as the country mechanics where my former Camry broke down.

 

Re: Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

While I am glad your FM works fine, I am stunned they charged you $700 to fix it...
How much did they charge you to replace the antenna coax?
How much does $10 worth of coax cost when buying it though Toyota?
Did they even bother to mention it could have been repaired in place?

WOW

 

Re: Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

I doubt they had anyone in their shop that knew coax could be repaired in place. Or knew how to test it for that matter

 

Re: Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

That's just sad..... it's the replace the black box on the block diagram school of repair. I'm trained down to the board level! Oh, well!
What about the rest of these posters and their FM problems...more meeces?

 

doh!

 

As I said in a post a few months ago, removing my external antenna entirely has no effect on reception on the stock setup in my Gen 3. That suggests the radio cannot "see" the antenna. I expect the problem is an assembly problem, about which Toytoa is in denial, rather than a plague of rodents.

 

Re: Unusual Cause of Poor AM-FM Reception!

Scott Seely wrote : QUOTE : I took the car to a second dealer and...they found that a MOUSE HAS CHEWED THRU THE ANTENNA CABLES IN THE UPHOLSTERY ABOVE THE
PASSENGER SIDE DOOR! I was right- radio was not getting antenna input. The dealer replaced the cables and now my reception is
PERFECT!

The bad news: This is NOT covered under warranty, so I paid $700
for the fix. END QUOTE

My feelings are that if Toyota still has holes in the 2010 firewall (like in the 2004 thru 2009) that they have not screened off (like I did on my own) to protect against rodents, then you should not have to pay that kind of money to repair something that they could have prevented. There's no reason they can't put some metalic mesh material (like the hardware store "Gutter Guard" that I used) over those holes at the factory. And what's with your stealership anyway? Did they charge you $100 for a short piece of coax cable & 6 hours of labor @ $100 /hr for that fix that Toyota could have prevented with about $2.00 worth of mesh at the factory? I would call the Toyota Customer Experience line & ask them why they haven't done anything over the last 6 years to prevent this kind of thing from happening & ask them why your repair should cost so much. Maybe demand that they reimburse you for a good portion of your cost because they haven't done anything at the assembly line level to screen off those holes.


QUOTE : GOOD PREVENTIVE TIP: to keep mice out of the car, ALWAYS SET THE AIR RECIRCULATION BUTTON ON "CLOSED" when you park the car- especially in winter when mice want warm homes! END QUOTE

I'm not so sure the recirculate button will be of any help here. Almost every time I shut my 2005 Prius down in the winter I set the button to "recirculate" (rather than "fresh") & then shut off the blower & the entire car. But when I restart the car later, immediately the yellow bar is lighted at the top of the fresh air indicator on the screen (& I haven't even touched the screen to turn on the blower & I NEVER use the "Auto" setting), so the pathway for the rodents has already been open (if I hadn't screened off the 5 holes in the firewall).

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)
Edit was to manually key in "QUOTE & "END QUOTE" to the cut & pasted excerpts because I can't seem to make the quote function work unless I want to quote the entire post (which I don't---only the selected excerpts).

 

I have had the software update done about 1 month ago. No real change.
I drove a stretch of road with a friend's 5 year-old Polo with stock VW radio, and the same radio station I usually hear was almost CD quality. No noises, change of volume, etc.
I drove the same roads with the Prius and the FM radio reproduction of that same station was simply embarrassing in comparison, also considering the different buy price of the car and the age of the Polo we drove in.
I have written the dealer to either find a solution or I will find legal ways to get my rights as a consumer respected - almost breach of contract ("defective car delivered", I would say). I am getting really annoyed.
I week has gone by and heard still nothing from them.
Checking my (legal) options as we speak.
Not only to get the software update took forever, but not once Toyota (more than my dealer) tried to offer me another solution, an exchange, a different radio (e.g. Navi), an agreement, nothing, nix, niente. And the SW update came only when I bugged them in June after my last request in April. They didn't even try to show me that the performance of the radio is OK. Which means they know that it is buggy.
I thought I bought a Toyota, not some 3rd rank brand.
Too bad, because otherwise the car is perfect (for my expectations).

 

I have had my 2010 with Nav into the dealer for the third time regarding poor FM reception, this time I met with the regional rep. The conclusion - live with it. Toyota will do nothing. They compared it with the other Prius's on the lot and found that they were all lousy - big surprise. So, since my car wasn't unique - too bad.

 

anyone hacked a standard antenna on the little mast as a trial?
I got to believe that 1/2 wave length antenna would be SO much better than the tiny thing we have now..
FM wavelength is right around 5 ft.

Sam

 

Guys - Problem solved... with over 27k views to this thread , I reckon that a lot of folks would want to know what I did....

I had a 2004 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works that I sold before getting my 2010 Prius III. I had swapped out the stock MINI antenna for a stubby one. The stubby one went with the car when I sold it. So when I got my 2010 Prius III a few weeks ago, I was highly disappointed like so many others. For kicks and grins, I dug up the stock MINI antenna in my garbage pit of a garage and put it on. Reception is WAY better. Not perfect, but comparable to most other cars. AM reception is weakest, but I only listen "On The 3's" for the traffic reports anyway.

So here are the details. The stock antenna on my 2010 Prius III measures 7". The stock antenna from my old 2004 MINI Cooper S measures 16". Yes, 16". The MINI stock antenna has the same swirly-q ribs up the entire length, which is supposed to eliminate wind noise. The base of the MINI antenna is slightly bigger diameter than the Prius base, so it is obvious that the antenna is not stock. But most importantly of all is that the screw threads are the same. Mod time took a total of 30 seconds.

I highly recommend this mod. I'm not convinced that there is any magic in the MINI antenna, but I know it works. So call up your local MINI / BMW dealer parts department and place your order.

For those of you who may ask, I'm not claiming an increase in horsepower or mpg.... yet.

 

That's interesting. I did a similar experiment a few months ago (it's here in this thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...o-reception-in-2010-prius-25.html#post1112674 ) and found no difference. If anything, the noise problem got worse.

As the Mini aerial mast is pretty cheap I may get one to try, but other than just being 8 inches shorter than the one I tried I'm not sure what could really be different.

Jeremy

 

just do what I do, stream Pandora using a liquid Aux connector. It's poor mans satellite and you never have to listen to your radio

 

Did you change just change the antenna stick, or the antenna stick and the base?

 

he said the threads were the same, so only the stalk

Sam

 

Does that make him a "Stalker"?

 

I changed just the "stick" . Ez screw off, screw on.