Good day.

I usually leave the radio on when I turn off the engine, but this happened yesterday, and I am puzzled.

started the car, radio came on, as expected. drove around a bit. stopped, turned engine off; radio went off. did my errand, restarted the car: the radio is silent, as if no electrical power is getting to the unit. pushing and pulling the dash-mounted controls has no effect. drove about 1 hour, radio always silent. stopped, run another errand, restarted the engine and the radio came back to life.

email to SofA got no result, except a suggestion to take the car to a dealer.

has anyone seen this happen before?

it is a 2004 Forrester, with factory-installed, bottom-of-the-line radio+CDplayer unit.

maybe I jiggled the ignition key just right (3 turns to the left, 4 to the right, stand on your toes and sing "happy birthday") to trigger an unusual response in the on-board computer, or maybe it is time to go and demand for a replacement while still under warranty (3 months and less than 3000 miles)?

Any help/hint will be appreciated.

If you had no display while this was happening it may be a internal power problem in the unit itself. I would guess that the shop will try replacing the unit first off to try and fix this.

Good day.

I usually leave the radio on when I turn off the engine, but this happened yesterday, and I am puzzled.

started the car, radio came on, as expected. drove around a bit. stopped, turned engine off; radio went off. did my errand, restarted the car: the radio is silent, as if no electrical power is getting to the unit. pushing and pulling the dash-mounted controls has no effect. drove about 1 hour, radio always silent. stopped, run another errand, restarted the engine and the radio came back to life.

email to SofA got no result, except a suggestion to take the car to a dealer.

has anyone seen this happen before?

it is a 2004 Forrester, with factory-installed, bottom-of-the-line radio+CDplayer unit.

maybe I jiggled the ignition key just right (3 turns to the left, 4 to the right, stand on your toes and sing "happy birthday") to trigger an unusual response in the on-board computer, or maybe it is time to go and demand for a replacement while still under warranty (3 months and less than 3000 miles)?

Any help/hint will be appreciated.

Personally I would be doing what SOA said to do, it is a Warranty issue that requires fixing.

Don't muck around with it, it may also be a wiring problem and you don't want it going up in smoke if it is.

Sorry for the possible doom & gloom bit but it does happen sometimes.

yah.. just take it back and get it fixed. My radio prob wasn't that bad... sometimes it likes to eat my CDs.. not give them back. And when I finally get them out, it won't take another one in... fickle... instead of mucking with it and fiddlefartin i'm just keeping my eye out for a stereo i like..

 

but thats me with an 03 w/ 50k

 

good luck

Yes, take advantage of your warrenty....no point messing with it. They can probably fix it within an hour or two. BTW, the subaru's are very "aftermarket radio" friendly. I just replaced the stock radio in my '04 forrester with an alpine unit which supports an additional ipod interface. Not only do I have better sound (yes, the difference IS noticable) but now I can use my ipod in the car and it works great!