Hey, I'm just wondering if this is a broken unit, or if this is what I should expect from an AppRadio . . .

I bought 2 new AppRadio's at Best Buy last week when they were having the $199 sale. I was going to buy one for my wife for our anniversary, but they were so cheap, I decided to upgrade my U310BT while I was at it. Since my car has an aftermarket wiring harness in it already, I hooked mine up first. This is far from my first radio install and everything is hooked up correctly. I hooked up the parking brake wire to a SPST switch to ground, ASWC for steering wheel controls. Other than that it's not a complicated install. No external amps, no backup camera, etc.

From day 1 it has been a hassle. It has needed to be reset just about daily. It seems like every time it has been off for a while and goes through the "Pioneer' splash screen bootup process, you have about a 50/50 chance of it working. Sometimes, the touch screen will freeze, not letting you press that initial "OK" to start the radio. Sometimes, it will boot up but not sense the phone is plugged in. This morning, I had it boot up, no iPhone plugged in, turned on the radio, and had the whole thing freeze with the volume adjustment on the screen. The volume buttons still worked but the touchscreen was frozen and the home button didn't work. Plugging in a phone didn't help.

The most frustrating thing about this is that every time something boneheaded like this happens, I have to hard-reset the friggin thing, losing the clock (which, come on, it can't auto-set the clock? My crappy U310BT could at least do that!), radio presets, screen settings, etc.

I have had to reset the thing every single day I've owned it.

This is happening on OS 2.22 and 2.45.

At this point I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle to even unpack and install the second one, or if I should just return both of them and hunt for something else.

Is this normal? How often do you guys hard-reset your units?

Sounds like you got a faulty unit. I never had any of the issue that you described. Definitely not normal.

I'd say check out the other one because this isn't normal. Obviously something wrong with it. If both have issues then that's just bad luck but I doubt it.

Cool, thanks guys. I did go ahead with the install of the other one in my wife's car and it's fine with both 2.22 and 2.45. No issues or resets necessary.

Yesterday mine seemed like it was going to start, and froze at the home screen. I did a Settings>System Reset, and then a hard reset.

This morning, it booted up, the OK screen was fine, and I got to the point of starting CarMediaPlayer and it froze on the parking brake disclaimer, which normally goes away after the app loads.

Completely frozen, every time it boots.

So, what do you guys recommend for getting it fixed? I can return it to Best Buy and get my money back, but they don't stock AppRadio anymore and for the $199 I'd get back, I don't have a lot of options. I bought an extended warranty with BB, and they say they'll replace it with an equivalent deck, but somehow I doubt they would replace it with an AppRadio 2, and they don't have an AppRadio 1 to give me.

I read on here that Pioneer's customer service is awful, and that I'm looking at 3-4 weeks with a gaping hole in my dashboard if I go that route. This is so frustrating.

hey ryan, just signed up after i saw your post to give a little insight.

i purchased the sph-da01 around the middle of march, installed it right away and i had the issue where it would turn on and the splash screen would show but freeze on it at the last second of the "sunrise" type thing right after it said pioneer (hopefully you understand what that screen is). from what i read on a bunch of sites, seems there is a big number of these things that are somehow defective, some people on youtube claim up to a minute start time which is quite ridiculous. i contacted who i bought it from and had it rma'd and got my new unit finally march 31st, had to wait about 3 weeks total to get a good working one after all the shipping but it was worth it. my new one starts up everytime and works great.

i would recommend trying to return that one as soon as you can because it is defective. i got mine on amazon for $285 which is a little more than what you paid but in my opinion a working one for more is better than a defective unit, you never know when it might just die and then you would be out more money.

hope i helped a little

hey ryan, just signed up after i saw your post to give a little insight.

 

i purchased the sph-da01 around the middle of march, installed it right away and i had the issue where it would turn on and the splash screen would show but freeze on it at the last second of the "sunrise" type thing right after it said pioneer (hopefully you understand what that screen is). from what i read on a bunch of sites, seems there is a big number of these things that are somehow defective, some people on youtube claim up to a minute start time which is quite ridiculous. i contacted who i bought it from and had it rma'd and got my new unit finally march 31st, had to wait about 3 weeks total to get a good working one after all the shipping but it was worth it. my new one starts up everytime and works great.

 

i would recommend trying to return that one as soon as you can because it is defective. i got mine on amazon for $285 which is a little more than what you paid but in my opinion a working one for more is better than a defective unit, you never know when it might just die and then you would be out more money.

 

hope i helped a little

Absolutely. I would gladly rma it for a new one. But Best Buy, where I bought it, aren't just out of stock, they don't carry the App Radio, SPH-DA01 anymore. They only list the AppRadio2, SPH-DA100, on their site, and it's Coming Soon. If they still carried it, I could make them ship me a new one. If the AppRadio 2 was released, I could walk in there and try to finagle an upgrade via return. I think since they don't have a replacement they'll probably try to give me my money back. If I return it and get my money back, as you said, I'll have to order it from someone else, and spend more money, because at this point the $50 rebate window from Pioneer has passed, and everyone else is selling it for closer to $300. . . . I'm going to email Pioneer and see what my options are.

Absolutely. I would gladly rma it for a new one. But Best Buy, where I bought it, aren't just out of stock, they don't carry the App Radio, SPH-DA01 anymore. They only list the AppRadio2, SPH-DA100, on their site, and it's Coming Soon. If they still carried it, I could make them ship me a new one. If the AppRadio 2 was released, I could walk in there and try to finagle an upgrade via return. I think since they don't have a replacement they'll probably try to give me my money back. If I return it and get my money back, as you said, I'll have to order it from someone else, and spend more money, because at this point the $50 rebate window from Pioneer has passed, and everyone else is selling it for closer to $300. . . . I'm going to email Pioneer and see what my options are.

youll probably have to just take the money back and take the loss, its not a complete loss that could happen if you dont return it while you can

just my .02

Just bring it into Best Buy and they will handle the logistics of shipping it to pioneer, just did it couple of hours ago. No more than 5 min. in the store.

they did say 1-3 weeks

Just bring it into Best Buy and they will handle the logistics of shipping it to pioneer, just did it couple of hours ago. No more than 5 min. in the store.

 

they did say 1-3 weeks

Okay, so did you have to give them the whole unit with the wiring harness and all that? Or just the head unit?

Okay, so did you have to give them the whole unit with the wiring harness and all that? Or just the head unit?

just the head unit.