I know the base model radio gets a lot of grief here on the BB, but I haven't been able to find a "gripe post" about the specific problems it suffers of. After doing a thousand miles round trip from W-S NC to Tiffin Ohio in order to pick up our Boxer girl that gave birth and finished whelping four pups,here are my gripes about the stock level radio:

1: The channel scan function is random at best as to what it thinks is a valid station. Half the time, it grabs on to static, other times, it just scans and scans without finding squat for a signal.

2: While driving towards Columbus Ohio, we picked up an old favorite at 96.3 FM (WLVQ 96), we had a solid signal without any static until 10 miles from the Tiffin exit on 23N. Daddy Wags and Elliot if you are familiar! On the way back from Tiffin this morning, once we reached the point where we changed the station while going up, the tuner couldn't "lock on" to the signal until we drove another 30 miles south towards Columbus!

3: Furthermore, the lack of a function to manually tweak the tuner seems to elude me (if it even exists), ie. no way to set the tuner to 96.3! Is there a way to do this... if so I haven't been able to find it!

4: If the volume of the radio is set low, and you slowly increase it using the left knob, only the passenger side volume goes up and the driver side stays nearly inaudible. If one turns the volume back down to near zero and then quickly turn up the volume, both sides come up the same.

So, do the above issues ring true with typical base model radio gripes, or is it time for me to take advantage of the 3 yr, 30K mile warranty? My final question is if it would be worth while to seek out a "premium sound" radio from the bone yard... if so, what do I need to snag beyond the head unit? Is this a full harness and amp swap-out? Any advice would be appreciated!

From her down is all about Kelly our Boxer btw, please skip if not interested!

By the way, Kelly, our Boxer, is glad to be home, she gave birth to four great pups and took excellent care of them. This is the first and probably the last time we will breed her (She is almost three years old), as by the co-ownership contract we got her under, all obligations are fulfilled... she is now all ours! Please note, we did not get Kelly under this contract to show her in championship events, we got her as a healthy loving pet. We have also made the prospective new owners of her pups jump through hoops of fire to be "approved", ie. fenced yards, excellent vet references, home visits, and so on. By the way, Kelly's "biggest" accomplishment (on paper) is her Therapy Dog International certification... she enjoys going to retirement homes and hospitals so she can bring smiles to the patients! On the home front, she is a great family member with great discipline and a humorous streak of mischief! I call that a great balance!

Sorry about "dogging up" this post, but I'm more than a bit happy about what Kelly has accomplished!

jorrell
--
92 245 250K miles, IPD'd to the hilt, 06 XC70, 00 Eclipse custom Turbo setup...currently taking names and kicking reputations!