I'm kind of in the same situation, except my problem is with a JVC head unit I bought for my truck about a year ago. I bought it from the local authorized dealer, a place that makes very annoying commercials, but seems decent enough. This was my third stereo I have purchased from them, the first two were working fine when I sold them, or the vehicle they were in. I had no problems with my last one, a Sony (Not the greatest rep lately), and it's still working fine for the kid I sold it to over a year ago. The JVC has a 2 year warranty, and that was partly the reason I bought it locally.
The HU is the KD-AR7500, a fairly high end "Arsenal" unit, with MP3 and Sirius controls. One of the freatures is the really nice customizable display. CD/radio play is flawless, and sounds great. The problem is with the Sirius. When it was first put in, I noticed no issues for a while, then one day, when I was changing channels on Sirius, the display froze, the sound changed (the station changed, but the display was stuck), and maybe 30 seconds later, it beeps and says "Reset 08". I look in the manual, and on the website, and it says to reset the unit. Ok, so I do, and the Sirius works, for a few days, then it does it again, and this time, the Sirius is gone, like it's not even there. I go back to the dealer, who scratches his head, and puts in a new Sirius module. It works for a couple of weeks, and dies again. The module is replaced again! Same thing, and the head unit is replaced. Unplugging the Sirius module fixes the problem, temporarily. The more often Sirius channels are changed, the sooner the problem reoccurs. If I work at it, it literally only takes a few hours of changing channels to cause it.
Nothing changes, regardless of what has been replaced. There are a million adjustments on the thing, and every one of them is lost when you reset it, EQ, station presets, everything. I sent an Email to JVC and got nothing. Then I called the 800 number, and talked to a fairly nice person, who told me to take it to the local repair place, where it would be gone over. I would have no stereo for probably close to a month if I do.
Strangely enough, almost at the exact second I hang up with him, here comes a reply to my email message back, from the same guy I was just talking to! I had sent the message about 12 days earlier. It just said to take it to the warranty place. I feel that since this problem has been happening since day one, they should replace the unit with the equivalent current model, but the guy I spoke with kind of laughed at this, so that's not going to happen. Having spoken to a couple of other places in town, and a friend of mine who used to sell car stereo, I found out JVC is known for lousy customer service. Great.
My dealer has during this period stopped selling JVC car audio. He's doing everything reasonable on his end, and I have no real complaints with them at all. They will be trying a "last ditch" attempt at solving this in the morning. Since they have put in 2 head units, and 4 Sirius modules, along with the cable from the HU to the Sirius modules, without any difference, I made the suggestion that the only common thing is the truck (I really doubt this will solve it), and maybe wiring the unit directly to the battery will solve it. So, in the morning, that will be done. I should know in a few hours if it's fixed.
If not, I should know by Tuesday morning, and I will, as soon as the store opens, buy another car stereo and Sirius box, have them put it in, and take the JVC to the warranty repair place, and let them play with it. When it comes back, it goes on Ebay, where the same unit brand new sells for about half what I paid for it locally, so I will take a bath on it, but good riddance. I don't think the thing is fixible, I think it's some kind of firmware bug, but I don't see much about this and the other similar units on any of the car stereo forums to really tell.
I won't buy anything from JVC again, there are other companies that deserve my business, and JVC isn't one of them. Before it goes on Ebay, I will write to JVC snail mail, and see what happens. I don't expect much, but I have been surprised in the past by Acer and Sony in the past when I wrote to them, so who knows, maybe they will come through.
