This happened to me today AGAIN... so the occurrence rate is about once every six months. I'm pretty sure I hit the "SET" button accidentally however. I did get all those pluses and weird characters in the audio settings this time too.

I appreciate VVtiBob's response above, the next time I go the dealer (which will hopefully not be soon) I will see if they are willing to talk about this item. I'm pretty certain though that the pressing of the SET button is what cranks the audio ALL THE WAY UP. Right after the incident, I pressed the SET button again just to see what would happen and indeed it set the audio ALL THE WAY UP.

 

Have you tried to reset the set setting?

 

Ugh this happened again a few days ago, actually TWO DAYS IN A ROW! This must be a record.

Both times it was right after I plugged in an iPod via the cassette player to AUX convertor and pressed the play button. I don't think I pressed the SET button either time on the steering wheel, and I have set the SET button each time I had this incident.

My car also has a strange issue where my 2A fuses for my radar detector blow out often, I wonder if it's somehow related, like a spike in power.

 

This has become a trend and happened again today, right after I put the roof down. This time around I did not plug the AUX cable into an iPod, but rather it was plugged into a bluetooth A2DP streaming adapter. I may have pressed the SET button by accident, but I'm not entirely sure.

I think it's about time I get this issue addressed at the dealer. The only trouble is that it's impossible to reproduce for the techs in the dealer...

 

This happened twice more now, every time right after I lowered the roof.

This time I noticed the following...

After I lowered the roof, I started playing music through the cassette player adapter and the music was playing at the correct (previously set) volume, but sounded "unequal", the two sides left and right speakers sounded misaligned. This was the tell-tale sign that something was wrong, but the audio was still at the normal level. I pressed the equalizer button on the right side of the stereo and right away saw all the strange characters and "pluses" on the display. Then I used the audio adjustment **** on the radio itself (not the steering wheel controls) to adjust the volume a bit, and BAM, the sound went to max loudness.

I did not touch any of the steering wheel controls at all (100% sure of this). So I have derived a temporary workaround to keep my eardrums from blowing out until I get this fixed (whenever that may be...)

I must keep the radio door open now pretty much all the time. After I get in and start the car, before doing ANYTHING ELSE, I first must press the equalizer **** in the right side of the stereo to check if the display is showing the strange characters and pluses. If it is, then I must IMMEDIATELY adjust everything back to normal before turning on music. If it is not showing pluses and the strange characters, then all is well (this time around...) and I am free to turn on music and not have my ear drums blown out.

While this is a kludgy and potentially time-intensive workaround (consider it a "checklist' which you must go through before turning on music), it should help anyone else experiencing the same issue.

 

lexus know its the amp. you have to replace it. problem solved.

 

The unit is set to increase the volume when the top is dropped. You might try disabling that (so the volume remains the same) and see if that stops the problem from occuring. You'll just have to manually adjust the volume then.

 

I think this post is one of the last posts from VVTiBob prior to his hiatus.

I miss him.

 

mandyfig
did something happen to bob?