Just got back from Big Bear and what started as a freak little audio
glitch has turned into a very disconcerting system failure.
Friday mid-day as I started my car in a parking lot, I noticed that the station coming through my radio was not the one I left it on. The car was registering me changin stations, yet nothing would change that came out of hte speakers. Then it started changing the pre-set station number, but left the labels alone. For example, a station set as 89.9 and labeled KCRW would become 87.7, yet continue to be labeled KCRW. no matter what button was pressed, the radio stayed on 87.7 and gradually ruined 4 of my 6 preset stations. When I reached my next destination, I turned the car off and back on, and everything was fine again, except that I had to reset hte ruined presets.
Fine. Sucked for that ride, but everything's all well and good, right? Not so much.
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, last time I got out of my car, my entire
display screen was frozen and a majority of the controls for my radio
including the steering wheel controls were completely unresponsive.
It's a strange intermittent problem with no rhyme or reason as to
cause. Driving up to Big Bear on Saturday afternoon everything is fine
for the majority of the drive, then suddenly I notice that my
display is not giving an outside temperature reading. Then I also
notice that, despite that fact that I'm driving up the curvy roads to
Big Bear Lake (here in CA), it's telling me my 5 min increment milage
is over 100mpg with no braking. (Impossible) So we try to turn the A/C off and
find that the diosplay is extraordinarily slow to respond to commands,
and when I finally get the the Climate screen, it refuses to shut
down. Oh, and the radio refuses to turn on. Great. Can't really stop
at this point safely, but when we get to a turnout I shut the car off,
let it sit for a few minutes and restart, hoping a reboot is all the
computer system needs. Doesn't help.
A couple hours after reaching our destination, we venture out in the car again
and all is well... for a few minutes. I even notice that despite being frozen for
most of the trip up, the car has at least still managed to keep track of my MPG,
and I'm down to 38-ish. Then it all freezes up again and we turn in for
the night.
It's now Sunday AM and we're on our way back to Los Angeles.
Everything's fine for a few minutes and then the freezeing starts up
again, luckily we've gotten the A/C off at this point and the radio on
before the madness starts again.
After about 17 miles, the radio shuts itself off and then becomes
unresponsive. I notice that the screen has unfrozen and frozen again
as my mileage has changed from 38 ish to 58mpg (we're going down
the mountain at this point.)
About 30 minutes later I notice that everything's unfrozen agian, as I
can read an outside temperature. I can see my mileage as I drive and I
can manuvere between screens. We can get the CD player going agiain,
but now the volume won't work via the main knob or via the steering
wheel controls.
About 20 minutes later, it's all gone again. About 5 minutes after
that the audio shuts itself off agian. This time for good.
Obviously I'm taking a little trip to my dealer in the morning. But
either my Prius, Moya, is now suffering demonic possession or
something horirble has happened to the electronic system. Someone out
there must have some idea of what's going on.
My instinct is that something has come loose, but I can't for the life
of me think of any unusual driving or anything that may have jolted
something out of place. It's not like we've been off-roading or
anything.
The first problem I wrote about and this new development must be
connected. My Moya is a very sick little lady right now. Anyone have
any idea what kind of big she may have picked up? Help!
Someone on another website wrote me and said that this has happened to others, and that they've had to have their display's replaced. does anyone have any further information on this? Or are you actually someone to whom this happened? I really need some help on this, I hate going into my dealer blind. Guess I'll have the bladder recall thingy done at the same time.
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