Car went in for a basic oil and 10,000 miles service and, on the way home, I notice the Kenwood head unit isn't working. Nothing electrical was done during the service, so this is probably just bad timing.

Anyhow, there is no response from the unit, apart from a small red flashing triangle on the top left corner of the unit.

Done so far:

1. Re-set button pressed and held multiple times (this was the flashing red triangle)
2. Fuses all checked
3. Took head unit out fully, checked all the connections and wires visually (I'm not a qualified multi-meter man myself) and re-installed.

Still no life in the unit.

Any suggestions welcomed before I shell out for a replacement.

 

have you tried holding the reset while powering unit on

 

Thanks for the suggestion; yes, tried that one. Tried holding a various combination of buttons, but no joy.

 

My first reaction after doing what you have already done, would be Kenwood customer services, ask for technical help.

 

I'll aim to drop them a line this coming week I think.

 

Nope, ring them.

 

Well, the final thoughts from Kenwood are that it's broken. No sh#t. So, I'm in the market for a replacement unit. I may well upgrade the poor speakers at the same time. I'll post up something in the ICE section, but any suggestions on units/speakers and sensible upgrades most welcome.

 

Mine uses a Sony headunit, as for speakers, go somewhere with a display you can listen to and listen. DON'T take advice and buy, your idea of sound heaven may NOT be the same as Joe Public's

 

The red triangle lights up when the ignition is on so maybe nothing to worry about but try disconnecting the unit completely by parting the wiring harness plug and leaving the unit for half an hour then reconnect and see what happens.

 

Will do.

 

Any luck.

 

Not yet - been on holiday and away from the car. I'll have a try today/tomorrow.

 

No joy after disconnecting over night. Unit is damaged somehow. May well be repairable - might stick it on Ebay as a spares or repair.

 

It may well be suspect wiring in the car. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this thing powers up completely normally once hooked-up to an external loom.

 

There's definitely power going into the unit - it accepts and rejects CDs, for example. Screen and all other audio functions are non-functional. I'll take it to an audio shop and get it repaired if possible. My local garage had a friendly look and also declared the unit dead. But, who knows, you may well be right.

 

I had a very similar issue for a couple of weeks with the no-name CD/DVD player that used to be in my classic. The red standby LED would come on with the ignition, but the unit would never actually power up for some reason. The simple act of opening up the center console to have a check of the wiring (there was nothing obviously loose) seemed to fix it, without really doing anything else. This was around the same time that the original alarm was on its last legs though, so that may have had something to do with it.