Finally sent the Z-1 to have the freeze up issue looked at. I had tried all levels of resets prior to this. My unit had been freezing up and ocassionally skipping songs in the harddrive like there were bad spots.

It was outside of warranty by about 4 months when I sent it in.

Got the call from pioneer yesterday - $70 for a full evaluation of the problem. Paid via credit over the phone.

Received a call today - need a new hard drive - would you like us to do that? Sure - extra cost 313.xx - had to pay via credit card over the phone.

End result they will be replacing the hard drive and updating all software for 383.xx!!!! I feel raped

I guess I wouldn't be as upset if I didn't know that they had problems across the board with this freeze up issue and hard drive cooling issue. This kind of wide ranging defect typically constitutes a recall on a product, not a 383.xx bill from a company to fix it. I wish something could be done

Alright I'm done with the ranting...

I would call up and bitch since so many people are having this problem during this heatware.

And definitely save your receipt for the repairs. If they do a recall, maybe they will reimburse you like they did with the N1/2 ribbon cable

wow RAPED

cuz my unit got sent in 2 time and they never found a problem

i wonder why cus im still under warranty

well this will be my last pioneer unit

just for that

it shows that when you have to pay they will find evry problem they can

mine has froze a few times. but when it happens again, ill get it warrantied. not too hard when u work at a retail store that sells em lol

my biggest mistake was not getting it in before the warranty ran out...

If this fixes the problem, then I will be happy (although not that happy due to the cost). I mean the z-1 is the ultimate head unit out there but the amount of freeze up issues due to heat is ridiculous. At some point pioneer should take responsibility for their faulty product.

Anyway, the "new" unit will be back on its way to me tomorrow and I will see how it is when I get it back. At least I told them to do all the software updates as well - so one less thorn in my side.

And trust me I WILL definitely keep this receipt - they told me 90 days warranty on this work - but if it happens again, then I WILL raise hell to no end. And I work with insurance companies all day long - I make a living raising hell

my guess is that 35% or so of the hard drives are defective from the get go. the problem is once they overheat they get worse quick as to where 70% hold there own in the heat a little better.

you may find yourself in the same shoes shortly unless you get a luck of the draw hard drive

next time buy your own HD and back up a copy of your new HD so that you have a plan.

stopping the heat first so that your HD doesnt take a dump is mandatory with these units as they cannot disapate heat from the HD. Sunshade, cracked windows are all i can offer rite now. im looking into a few other things. 1 a remote HD to a cooler part of the car 2 some internal cooling mods.

as of now when my HU is hot i pop my HD out and put it in front of the ac duct till its cool pop it back in and everything is fine unless the HU is to hot then it will heat up the unit shortly and even though its booted the library will skip and cannot be used.

these units need better cooling and they need a better HD pioneer botched this one good

I like the remote HD idea. You could also affix a heat sink and 12 volt fan to it. I've never taken one of these units apart, I'll bet routing the ribbon is going to be a challenge.

i havnt dug into it enough to justify remote or just better cooling.

if i did do remote it would just be a ribbon ext once you take off the HD faceplate there is a nice little gap that may be used. i still need to dig more.

To me, it sounds like a class action lawsuit is what needs to happen for selling us lemons. Any legal people here want to chime in to see if this is a case at which we can win? There are far too many people here with this problem.

rmo55c...I would think some sort of refund is due to you since Pioneer has now put out a "fix" to the problem and have made it "free" for all Z1/Z2 owners. I'd be calling Pioneer and raising hell for a refund.

haha - oh I will. I'm already into another battle with them because the new HDD they put in started freezing in the second week!!!! When I called them about it they wanted me to PAY shipping to send it back in and have it looked at again. I have been raising hell almost daily since... of course to no success yet. I wonder if I might have better luck in another department, like customer satisfaction or something.

On a side note, now I have to figure out which firmware to use. The new HDD I have uses the 2 wire bypass but I don't know if its technically a z1 or z2 HDD. I guess I can follow the instructions on the pioneer website and check my service info screen, but knowing how "great" Pioneer has been to me in the past I am slightly worried.