Weak FM radio reception in 2010 Prius?

Do keep us posted... many think it might also be the antenna in which case you won't likely see much of an improvement.

 

This thread is like a bunch of blind guys groping an elephant. Another pair of hands is always welcome, except, perhaps, by the elephant.

 

My latest and greatest are that Toyota Germany has offered me, at a "convenient price" (their words) the TNS510 radio with Navigation at 430€+19%VAT=511€, that is, as a exchange of my stock radio.
1) I am not going to spend 500€ to fix a defect that I am not responsible for
2) I don't need a navi, I want an FM radio that works
3) I find it preposterous for a company to ask one of their customer to dish several hundred €€€ to fix stuff they sold that doesn't work

My dealer, who received this communication is also not at all pleased by it. I have made the counter offer of compensating my defective radio, since a fix is not available, with a 450€ credit (the difference between the 500€ they are asking me and the street price of that same radio, as sold on the Prius in the Netherlands - this radio is not offered not even as an option on the Prius in Germany - it is available for example on the iQ though) to be used in the next 2 oil changes and checks - since Toyota Germany is willing to loose that much revenue.
If this will not happen, I will write to ADAC and all major German auto magazine to tell them about this behaviour from customer support.
I am wondering if they are so picky on 400€, what will it happen when something much more expensive will break within the warranty timelimit? will they ask money from me as well???

I am pretty sure that Toyota EU and Toyota Japan are not aware of this offensive offer from Toyota Germany. If they are, I will make sure that the next car, if it is a Toyota, will get full scrutiny of all its functions during the test drive, before deciding to buy another one.
It is a great pity to see this behaviour from Toyota Germany customer "support", considering the car offers so much and I am so pleased with it.
BTW: not once I have been contacted directly from Toyota Germany (i.e. on the phone) to know how to resolve this - all I get is emails, via my dealer, asking me for money.
German service, on a Japanese car - the worst combination it seems. I bought a Japanese car to get Japanese service, instead I get VW service....("it's your fault [ie. you customer] that you bought a car with a radio that is cheap enough to have faulty FM function - you should have taken the 2500€ Navi and it would have been perfect...Vielen Dank")

 

It is a horrible story, pakitt. The customer service in US is much better (I hope in it from the forum feedback) then in Europe and they didn't find the solution for non-JBL radio (US model II) yet. Many of drivers exchanged their headunits with trully brand ones without any significant or noticeble result. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't know how the Toyota inside company communication works, but it will be very pleasant to know oficially if the factory is aware of this problem and they try hard to track down the problem, which is probably very complex, I think.

 

If it were the antenna we could install a new one...

My fears are it be some kind of electrical interference with the hybrid part of the car. In that case, there is nothing we can do.

I think the dealer can easily wash his hands with our problem: "the radio works", "I can hear it well"...

We all say reception is poor compared to others radios we had before, but this is our problem, not dealer's. Is the radio a bad quality one? Had bought a better one, had bought a better car...


So i see three possible lines:

1) The radio is the problem. It's simply a bad quality product (i wrote "bullshit" above...sorry if a used an inapropiate word, my english is not good enough). This would be the desirable one. We could change the radio for a better (any radio from alpine, pioneer, etc, would be better) one.

2) The antenna is the problem. Antenna wire can be replaced too.

3) Interference with MG1, MG2, battery, wires...of the car is the problem. I think this would be the worst situation. We could do nothing. I don't know how we could "isolate" the radio installation from that kind of interferences. Toyota probably knows, but i don't think the want to do, tell, or help us, since "the radio works".

 

It's a mixture of problems.

There's no doubt at all that the car is electrically noisy, I've measured it as have others; even Wikipedia has an entry on Prius high EM levels.

The stock radio is also not at all good. It responds to interference by making a lot of audible noise. Other brands of radio have been shown to be much better at interference rejection.

I've changed the radio in my car twice. Both replacements were audibly much better than the standard radio, but both still performed badly in known local weak signal areas. In one case I have a direct comparison, as the Kenwood unit I'm currently using was fitted to my Honda a year ago where it performed flawlessly.

The antenna seems OK, at least I don't think there's much to be gained by changing it. With the car parked and in accessory mode, rather than Ready mode, the radio works very well indeed, even in known weak signal areas. Turn the car to Ready mode and the radio loses the signal or gets very noisy.

Jeremy

 

Well, i have to disagree this.

Sometimes i turn the radio in accesory mode, and select a radio station. When selected, the radio looks perform ok. But a few seconds after, the volume drops, and the quality of sound drops too. Then, if i turn the "tune" wheel clockwise or counterclockwise ending at the same point of the dial, the signal strength returns. But a few secons later drops again.

This happens with the car running too.

------



In known weak signal areas with other radios, the prius one is weaker.

In known good reception areas with other radios, the prius one may perform ok, may perform weak.


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I had never been able to find a relationship between the drop of the signal and the electrical parts of the car.

For example: I have a scangaugeII. When the amps generated or used to move the car are higher i do not detect more interferences at the radio fm reception than when amps are lower...

What are the situations when the car produces the higher amounts of electrical noise?

Braking hard?

When the battery is full, or empty?

At high speeds?

 

The experiments I did to show the effect of the car powering up are described elsewhere in this thread. To summarise, I drove out to a remote area where the FM signal is known to be weak. I parked the car and switched it to accessory mode (power button on without putting my foot on the brake pedal). The radio worked OK, with an acceptably low noise level.

I then powered the car on to "Ready" and the radio noise increased a great deal, with the signal sometimes just disappearing.

I double checked by turning the car off and then powering it on again in accessory mode, when the radio again worked well.

I also did some checks by turning on various items, including the windscreen wipers, and noted some other odd effects (they are described elsewhere in this thread).

The replacement radios behave similarly, but to a much less noticeable degree. Both the Chinese unit I tried and the Kenwood I have installed now are a lot quieter when the signal strength drops. They do still lose the signal when in a weak signal area, but they didn't make a lot of unpleasant noise as the signal strength dropped.

Jeremy

 

Recent posts are covering ground that has been covered, and re-covered repeatedly, in earlier posts here. The thread is much too large to be read in its entirety, but the Search function is your friend.

 

my reception is poor also. (I always wondered why Toyota does not have the antenna in the glass for aerodynamics.) Seems like they did not test our radios or perhaps did not care that the radios have bad reception.

 

Or, and that would not surprise me, they tested it in Japan (where the bands are different) and it worked OK, and it does not work properly in other parts of the world in different bands where noise is picked up more than in the bands used in Japan.
Or, and this also would not surprise me, they asked the Tier 1 to come up with a economic design to reduce cost and they made it at the limit of acceptable performance....
Or... I don't know, but I would really like to know what's really behind this whole story...

 

Probably be that.

But i would prefer they had put no radio, and no speakers too.

Then the customers could install their favorite radio, nav, or none.


Well, in the next days i'll install a radio i have in other old car in the prius.

Then i will be able to determine if reception improves or keeps on the same poor level of quality.

The radio is this:

23022011222

 

Hello. I did a test today.

Took out the oem prius radio and replaced with my old car JVC radio.

The prius radio was manufactured in The Philippines, sep 09.

I had to purchase an antenna adapter. Toyota's antenna is different to most ones.

The install was simple. The JVC radio worked very well, as usual it did in my old car.

I did not detect any drop of FM strengh as the oem radio uses to do.



Now i drive my car with the radio installed this way:



Now i'm in the market for a new and quality HU.

One more thing: now the speakers don't look so bad to me.

I'm happy and angry at the same time:

- Happy because my FM reception was improved. My fears were that changing the radio was no solution due to electrical noise from some part of the car. So now i know that using a quality radio (not the oem trash) i will get good fm.

- Angry with toyota. This was the worse radio i never had. Before to put into a car such bad stuff, i think it would be better sell the car with no radio installed.

 

^ although my reception improved a bit when I put in a new HU, it didn't improve it enough (compared to others). But I am spending much less time listening to FM anyway...

Glad things worked out for you.

 

Well, that install is not definitive, obviously.

The fm improved, improved a lot. Just like in my earlier car.

i'll listen fm for some days at different places, and will see if buy a new HU worths it.

Regards.

 

Priusito, I see same metal, silver box connected in FM antenna trace. What is it? Amplifier, FM filter?

 

@priusito_de_mi_vida

Wow you do all that for just a radio.........I would just buy a portable radio and plug it in the AUX, hehe.

 

Let's see:

- The red circle part is an amplifier of the antenna signal i used in my old car, a VW golf. That amplifier is made by volkswagen and i could not connect it because i would need another adapter i still don't have. So that part is not connected to the radio.

- The yellow square part is an adapter from toyota antenna to my old radio antenna input. Toyota didn't well here too, and the oem antenna harness does not fit in the antenna input of the market HU. So i had to buy that part (ever the dealer did not have it) at a online store.

 

The oem radio has no AUX.

I did more than that to the car, take out the radio is a piece of cake:




The radio goes now this way:

 

Thanks for the reply. You were more lucky than me with this adapter. I was not able to find the correct one for reasonable price in time when I played with my HU. I had to use the DIY method.
Did you connect the adpater's blue wire to +12V to power up OEM antenna?