GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

This sucks! I turned on my 5-month old Sportster Replay last night and the display started flickering... 30 seconds later, i Had no backlight on the LCD at all. If I beat the crap out of the top of the unit, it comes back on for a while. The display still shows stuff, just doesn't light up which makes it about 99.9% useless.I checked around on what I need to do for warranty... Since I bought it at Radio Crap, I have to go through them for warranty service. 'course I looked all over and can't find the receipt. But I did have one at one point since I sent in a rebate to Sirius and got the check. And the store I bought it from was going out of business so I can't exactly return it there. (all sales were final when I bought this and it sounded like I couldn't return it to ANY Radio Shack after that point so I took a chance and hoped the tuner would hold up.) Even if I could get Sirius themselves to warranty it, they demand that you send it back in with ALL original accessories, packaging, literature, etc. What a crock... I have a tendency to save the boxes junk came in but this one time I didn't. If I can't get any resolution through Radio Crap, not sure what I'm going to do... I really don't want to disconnect the service on my tuner but I can't really afford a new one right now. Guess I'll finally learn to save EVERYTHING and lock it up somewhere, that will come in handy for next time.

If you can beat the crap outta it and the light would come on, sounds like it might be a cold solder joint? Thought about popping it open and seeing if it was an easy fix?

Oh yeah, I've thought about it. That sounds exactly like what the problem is. It also had one button on the top which hasn't had backlighting for a while, then another went out, then the LCD, so the problem is kinda cascading at this point... Depending on what they tell me at Radio Crap (I'll call them later once they're there) I may just have to tear this piece of crap apart... I already have my old beat up last-gen Sportster that I can take apart and look at to see if I can figure out which pins go to what or whatever before I tear into the new one. Wish me luck.

Perhaps you should see an exorcist to get your demons expunged. Or maybe a gypsy to get your technology mojo repaired. At least the evil has transferred from your vehicles for now.

Quote, originally posted by joatmon »Perhaps you should see an exorcist to get your demons expunged. Or maybe a gypsy to get your technology mojo repaired. At least the evil has transferred from your vehicles for now.Aw, joatmon, you silly goat! I don't think this is a mojo issue... I posted about it on Sirius Backstage and got a reply such as this isn't the first time this has happened, won't be the last, Sirius knows there are lots of problems with these units exactly as I described.I called Radio Crap, they said nope, return to the store. Uh, yeah. The only one that could probably prove I bought it is closed. So, I called Sirius... They didn't seem to question it too much, just told them the backlighting was out, tried both car and home cradles, no luck. They gave me the number to their warranty center, talked with them... All of the sudden I start hearing "I'm sorry to hear you are having a problem with your equipment" Oh crap, now's time for the shoot down... THen they give me my two options for replacement, i.e. mail it now and wait a few weeks to get it back or give them a CC and get one shipped within 3 business days, if they receive this lemon within 30 days I don't get charged. So, once they send me my stuff, I just box up my cradle, antenna, and tuner and send it back in. Should have it sometime next week I guess. Hopefully they won't charge me $4,000 for this piece of crap accidentally. Said there's no hold on the card in the meantime, only charged if they don't get the broken one back.

Well thank ya Rob... I believe they've got me taken care of though.

Quote, originally posted by ColonelPanic »Now, let's just hope they fixed the stupid backlight problem with these units! Oh yeah, the new and improved Sportster Replay is great. So great that the backlighting for the jump and #6 preset buttons died within a couple weeks. I'm so happy they took the time to cripple the FM transmitter to the point where it isn't usable, yet chose to not correct the problem with the LED's that seems to plague these units. I can see why there have been issues with warranty replacements of many Sirius radios that were on backorder, DEI apparently makes a great product! If I really wanted to, I could fix this issue myself but I'm not comfortable with surface mount soldering. I'd love to solder on some green LED's like my old Sportster had, it Sportster, it matched the new car perfectly. But I'd kill this thing if I tried. I'd love to find something that would be slightly more reliable, but that costs money... I guess I'll try to get this one replaced warranty first. I don't know if they'll replace it at this point, I'll likely have to have it worse before they do anything about it. I guess I can always leave it on 24/7 and have it cook itself to death and make the LED's die. Ok, rant over! Anybody else have issues with their plug & play Sirius tuner?