I am having problems with the head unit in my truck. It is a 7 year old Panasonic CQ-DF801U with a removable faceplate. When I turn the truck on I have about 2 seconds to turn the volume up or down. After that the unit is completely unresponsive until the truck runs for 10 minutes. None of the buttons will work to do anything, after the 10 minutes it works perfectly fine. Occasionally when I flip the faceplate down and eject a CD the head unit completely resets it’s self. It starts up in demo mode and nothing work for the ten minutes and then I can use it again, however when it does this It looses all of the saved radio stations and I have to reset the clock. It just started doing this one day, it is plugged in using the factory wiring harness, and I haven’t pulled the unit out yet to check the wiring since that involves taking apart half the dash. Any ideas what this could possibly be?
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Definitely seems like a power issue to me. Crack the dash, check for loose connections and check the power lead with a multimeter, if it's good there your deck is probably going. 7 years is a good run.
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If you have detchable face plate make sure those connections are good, couldn't hurt and it's probably and ez fix. Contact cleaner, pencil eraser would probably work. ON the plus side even if you need a new head unit unless your getting the one with a DVD player they are pretty darn cheap.
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If the continuous power has a bad connection or short, it could possibly cause the symptoms you are describing. I'd start by checking the fuses to make sure they are seated well. Could be a lot of things... in all honesty it's probably the head unit itself. 7 years of vibrations takes a toll on them.
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