Anyone experiences the stereo changing the channels on its own? We've got a 330 with 5K miles on it (purchased April 04). Randomly the stereo will do a quick channel down (changing from 97.1 to 96.9). This usually happens right after the car starts and i shift into gear or turn the wheels (ie. coming out of a parking lot).

I haven't seen anyone else talk about this so I guess I'm alone.

It happens mostly like this:

Stereo tuned to 97.1
Turn car on
Put into drive
Turn wheel to left and immediately drive out (within 30 secs or so of turning car on and shifting into drive).

Its happened to both my wife and I so I know I'm not nuts!

 

Hi trs, you've got an interesting situation here - "spontaneous" tuning". Could be a number of causes, tuning to an adjacent station possibly related to moving the vehicle? Decreasing signal strength causes AFC to grab the adjacent station? I moved your post over here to the audio forum to let the technical experts have a crack at it.

If you have the RSES, check that someone in the back seat isn't messing with your head by using the remote to change stations. I did that to my wife for about a hundred miles or so while pretending to be asleep in the back seat . . . aaaand I'm still paying for that one!

 

No RSES or ML in this car.

Premium plus package and base stereo.

 

Does your radio support RDS stations? If so, you may be listening in RDS mode and by moving the car the signal for the first RDS station becomes weaker than the second RDS station, and the radio will automatically switch to the more powerful station. As I understand RDS, it's purpose is to switch between stations with similar formats while you drive, so that you can always listen to the same type of music without hunting for new stations (sort of a poor-man's satellite radio). For example, it looks for rock stations, and will automatically switch from one rock station to another as the first station's signal becomes weaker while travelling.

 

Remember, the steering wheel has controls in it that allow you to control the radio. Since the problem shows up when turning the wheel, I would suspect the slip rings/brushes that connect these steering wheel controls are intermittant. Or possibly the controls in the steering wheel itself.
Oliver

 

I'm thinking the same thing. It happened twice to my wife last night when she made sharp turns.

I'm about due for my 5K checkup and I'll have the guys check it out when I take it in. I was hoping that it would break a little more so it would be reproduceable.