briandye

Just recently purchased and installed an AVH-4200NEX unit in my 2010 Grand Marquis. (Recently as in this past week). 

Absolutely love the unit, was considering ordering two more for my Expedition, and Slingshot, but now I’m on the fence. 

Ive has zero issues up until today. This morning, while driving to work, the unit just shut off and rebooted for no reason. Happened once more before I got to work (30 minute trip). 

On my lunch, 45 mins and zero issues. Remote started the car about 5 minutes before getting out there after work, and noticed as I was walking up to the car, it was in a boot loop. It would show the splash screen, warning “OK” screen and restart again. Then sometimes it would come on for around 10-30 seconds and reboot again. Then I got a solid 5-6 minutes and was on my way home and it would reboot every minute or two. 

*The unit was in “Bluetooth” as a source, during all of this. When the radio came back on on my way home, I switched over to HD radio, and eventually CarPlay and had no more rebooting for the remaining 20ish minute ride home. 

*All wire harness connections are soldered and heatshrunk, I double and triple check all of my wiring and connections. No shorts, this is an internal issue.

Is this a common issue? Fixable? I really love the crisp, clean UI and fluid motion of this thing, but I’m not gonna keep a $400 paperweight in the dash that looks pretty but doesn’t work right. 

Thanks for any tips! 

Im doing a little searching around and seeing that some units (Not mine specifically) are showing an operating range of only 14-114 degrees. If this radio cant work below 14 degrees, its as good as trash in my eyes. 

Can anyone tell me this isnt the case, and that I actually have a defective radio? 

Bought this brand new on Amazon back in March or April of 2015. No issues, loved it so far other than some bluetooth problems I recently started having, but i'm leaning more towards my phone being the problem there. Anyways, now that its cold outside, (Mi - hitting single digits or below) it doesnt want to start up. 

I turn my (2006 Explorer) on, the radio will tilt out to the setting I have it at, the disc slot will make a noise like it always has, searching for a disc, and then a few different things happen depending on how its feeling that morning. 

1. The screen buttons will light up, screen will come on a few seconds later, but no sound and seconds after, the screen and buttons turn back off. Sometimes it will retract the display and repeat this process 3-5 times

2. Nothing. The screen will tilt out to my position, then absolutely nothing else happens

3. There will be audio playing from whatever I had it on last, (FM, CD, DVD etc) but no screen, buttons light up but are not functional. The screen MAY or may not turn on before the unit powers back down and repeats this process numerous times

4. It will fully turn on as normal, start playing audio, then stop and repeat the whole startup process 3-5 times and then sometimes stay on and work, other times it will just stop and nothing will be on/working except the screen is tilted out to my setting. 

This ONLY happens if the vehicle is cold, like 30ish degrees (F) or lower. And once I have my heat on, turn the car off and back on to trigger the radio, it will come on within a minute or so and work fine. 

This is SO frustrating, and quite annoying having to tell people who ride with me, or we take my car on break/lunch at work somewhere. "By the way, my $300+ Pioneer radio that I speak so highly of, is a pile of sh*t now." 

Pioneer suggested updating the firmware, which I did, that seemed to make it worse. It would normally just turn on-off a handful of times but then eventually come on. Now it does what I mentioned above and WILL NOT come on after the car is warm unless power is cut (turning the car off and opening the door). 

Their next suggestion is for me to drive 55+ miles to the nearest Pioneer center to have them look at it and repair it hopefully. I work 12-13 hours a day, driving over 60m there and back, I dont really feel as if I should have to drive that far. After an email battle with the rudest person from Pioneer, they mentioned I could ship the unit to them at my cost and of course then im out of a radio for probably a month. If I drive it to them, im dropping it off and leaving apparently because it cant be worked on in my vehicle. 

Anyone else have this issue? Im at my witts end here, ready to buy a new different brand double din. This is BS!