Hello all!

I seem to be having a strange problem with me 2009 scion xb stock radio. Before my last trip up to NorCal, I could drive down the freeway at 70ish and listen to the music from my ipod at volume level 10ish or sometimes less. Now I am finding i have to crank it up to 25 or so just to get the same sound level. There have been no changes and as far I can tell I havent gone deaf, so what gives? Does anybody know or have come across something like this? I will be taking the car to the dealer fairly soon for a service, but it would be nice to know what the problem could be.

Thanks in advance,

yoda

 

I cant hear my radio anything under 20. But its always been that way.

 

I used to turn the radio up to 30ish to blast my ear drums. But now 30 gets me slightly above normal volume.

 

i don't listen to my radio... i keep my ears tuned to the sounds my car makes and i can spot problems when some new sound pops up thats not a dash or door card rattle

 

you must be incredibly boring to travel with.

 

I tend to do that with my 65 mustang, because that thing definitely lives up to the FORD acronym, fix-or-repair-daily. But I figures that since my scion is not even 3 years old and I maintain it very well, it should not be breaking down on me. On long car trips, the radio is a nice thing to have though. In town, I listen to the music my exhaust makes. Replacing the scuba resonator with a magnaflow round muffler does magic for the car's exhaust note (and maybe a bit more grunt up in the revs). Not ricey at all. An awesome growl down low and a very infinity g35-like sound note between 3000-4500rpm.
But getting back to the radio problem, could something in the radio itself gotten fried?

 

may not be too much help but have you checked all your fuses under the dash?

 

I'm having that same problem with my radio too. It used to be so loud, and I edited lots of settings on it to help try and get the volume up.

What I think is wrong with mine is possibly a weak connection with one of the harnesses in the back. I suspect that the connection is loose, the female connector in the back of the headunit. Although I have a premium unit compared to your stock, I suspect that there might be commonalities with problems.

The reason I suspect the connection is because when I messed around with it by resetting the car and tightening the connection, the sound would be loud again. But now sometimes even 30 is too quiet.

And now I finally have the a-pillar rattle. And it's annoying as hell.

 

have you cycled your ignition lately? on-off-on-off-on it does a soft reset.

 

did anyone make sure the volume level on your ipod didnt get turned down?

usually the simple answers are the best.

and secondly, a fuse would have absolutely nothing to do with a radio volume being low. if a fuse for the radio popped the radio would not be powering on.

since it is a pioneer radio the volume usually will go up to 60, anything below 20-30 will be very quiet. on my old pioneer f700bt I dont think it ever went below 30.

Worst case, detach your negative battery terminal for a little bit and hook it back up. that will reset your radio without having to pull it out. if the problem persists, you could contact scion. but personally i would just turn the volume up louder to the level you want to hear.

 

thats funny i don't like having passengers in my car to began with as this commercial states

 

Is the volume the same when you're parked with the engine off?

 

You should adjust your Automatic Sound Levelling (ASL) settings, these and all settings you have customized on your headunit will reset to factory settings if the battery has been disconnected or drained. There's four settings: off, low, medium, high.

 

Thank you all for your replies,

The ASL settings are on high. The sound level actually stays about the same, (maybe louder when the engine is off). I will try doing the soft reset and a hard reset if the soft one doesnt work. If the problem remains, I will give scion a call.

Thanks everyone!