bof

i suppose so. I'm just wondering how scion customer service will take it, because they set me up to get help with the dealer and we "agreed" (aka they told me) to try professionally burned cd's until i get a blip. Which I agree is ridiculous because in the meantime I have a player which won't reliably play mp3's, but I'm worried that now if I take it to another dealer they're going to find my file with the national customer service and then this whole thing will start over again. maybe i should just give it a week and see if it improves?

sciontc_mich

just tell the case manager that you're working with at scion corporate that you've already tried your cd's in another scion and that it worked fine, so that's how you know you need a new radio. you don't have to prove anything to the dealership. I went to try my cd's (mp3s) in another radio at a scion dealership and it worked fine, that's how i knew something was terribly wrong. there is no penalty for changing your mind. If i sound firm and angry, i am really not, it's that I cannot stand how some people are given the run around when more than one of us have had this problem with the stock radio..

so just tell scion corporate that you've tried another radio and it works fine so you expect a new radio to be installed and you'll continue to ask for a new radio until one works the way it's supposed to..

bof

Ok, so the scion customer service agent called me back and told me that there is a 3 second buffer. which makes the dealership's explanation totally bogus. So I'm going to try out my cd's for a week and if i can't find a problem in a week I'm definitely taking it to another dealer. I'll know on april 8th (when the customer service agent calls back). But this is ridiculous - i have to solve the problem on my own when i took it to the dealer specifically to find out what was wrong.

sciontc_mich

yeah i figured that it was a made up response.. not a good way for scion to be keeping customers when the dealers are just making up stories.. i agree with you that the burden of proof on you type of stuff is crazy and that the dealer makes you feel like you did something wrong for bringing it in.. see what happens in a week, for me personally, i think you might be taking it to another dealer to get a new radio.. and i bet everything will be fine, thanks for letting us now and let us know how it goes.

bof

so its come to this: i'm contacting pioneer directly. just for an update, this is my email to the customer service agency:


-------------begin-------------
Hi. I'm having a bit of a situation with my car stereo (stock) and no one at scion could really help so I was hoping you could help. I have a stock single cd stereo system in my scion tC (it should be the stock cd player included in all scions, xA, xB & tC). The model on the lower right hand corner is T1804. The stereo system has an mp3 playing ability which I am interested in using. The problem is this: when I use mp3's, burnt on high quality media (TDK) and not so high quality media (imation), from various different computers, there are random blips introduced into the music. What I mean by random is that if I play the same song twice in a row, the blips (the same sound as from a damaged CD) will be at different points of the song, or sometimes will not be present at all. The mp3's and the cd disc are clean - I've played them in another scion car with no problems and they work fine in at least two computer systems. The blipping has occurred in both cooler (~50 degr ees farenheight) and warmer (~78 degrees farenheight) temperatures. This problem does NOT occur during normal audio play back. By normal audio play back, I mean any cd burned as CD audio, including professionally pressed CD's as well as home burnt CD's. The dealer's answer to me regarding these blips is that the stereo is functioning normally: the blips are supposed to occur. My question then is why are they occuring as such ONLY with mp3's and not with cd audio? The dealer's answer is that the cd player has no buffer, so any small piece of dust will interfere. If that is true, then why does the problem only occur with mp3 cd's and not normal audio cd's, especially when CD audio should buffer LESS than mp3 audio since it is at least 10x larger? I've also recently found out that there is a 3 second buffer in the system, so the dealer's answer to me seems highly suspect. So please tell
me: is the blipping a *builtin* feature of the mp3 decoding process when it doesn't occur for normal CD audio, or is there something wrong with my stereo? Thanks.

---------------end------------

Oh, and just as another update: nothing is wrong with the cd player when I play normal cd audio. When i told that to the scion customer service agent, he says: oh so nothing's wrong then. I wish I could be there to smack some logic into him, because if nothing's wrong with the CD audio then how can anything be wrong with the laser that would cause mp3's to mess up? <sigh>... still waiting for my 1 week period.

bof

well an update again - scion national called me and said it might be a laser calibration problem, which i guess is semi plausible. They finally agreed to schedule me for a replacement next week. I'll let everyone know how it goes!

bof

Ok, i'm happy to report they finally switched my radio. I haven't used the mp3 function alot save the drive back from the dealer, but I'm hoping it works. I'll definitely let everyone know if there's a problem again, but as of now, it seems to be working!

sciontc_mich

yeah good deal bof!! let us know if the mp3's work now.. i bet they will.. my replacements finally fixed that problem as well..