Hey there -

Well, as the title says, my radio/HVAC display unit is cycling though total gibberish shooting out some Japanese and showing me indicators for the automatic fan control that the US Spec cars don't have. It turns completely unreadable and flashes through everything under the sun.

This happened right after I took the car to the dealer for the MSP16 ECU reflash, but I don't think that that had anything to do with it. I think what did it was parking the car in a sunny parking lot with windows up. Mostly, I park in covered garages so it never gets that hot in the car.

What I am wondering is if anybody else has had this problem? If they did, whether they were able to fix it themselves or whether it is a dealer fix thing, and last how much the part costs, and which part controls that?

If anybody has any ideas, I would really appreciate hearing them.

Thanks

 

it's easy to fix, just enter the following sequence:

up, up
down, down
left, right,
left right,
a,b
a,b
start

(bonus points to whoever can remember what that's from)

on a serious note: that's really strange! What year is your car? Did you buy it in the US? Not a canadian model maybe?
I don't think heat would cause that, as I've had mine outside in 110 degree weather with the windows up and it still functions properly.
Do you have Navigation? I remember there being a hidden menu on THAT with Japanese writing but never seen it on the radio display.

 

Nintendo.

Car is an '04 with 70,000 miles. I searched and found one thread from 2006 that linked these symptoms to heat in the car, but it didn't have any other information so I was hoping that in the intervening 2 years something more had been learnt.

No Nav.

It did spit some Japanese characters at me before becoming totally unreadable. I think that it might be trying to write Hamlet for the home market, but that doesn't do me much good.

There is also a fan display that is only used outside the US for the automatic climate control that wasn't offered here, at leat in '04. I got the pleasure of looking at that too.

 

Hey I am having the same problem. Started today after the getting into my car in about 100 degree heat. It just cycles through jibberish now and I am also wondering if anyone has a fix for this. Mine is a 2004 with 32,000 miles on it. TIA

 

Right now the fix seems to be the replacement of the display module, but I am not sure if this is correct or not, as I haven't had a chance to do it yet. I am waiting until the heat falls below a hundred, which is affecting me about the same way it is affecting the display module.

 

Wasn't that from Contra?
I remember they had a lot of cheat codes that began with "up, up, down, down..."
Of course later on I bought the Game Genie to handle my cheats (ahhh... the good old days)

 

FWIW you did it wrong....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code

ROFL

 

This happened to me a few years ago...they replaced, in order, Cable between radio and display, radio, display, and finally the CD player was the one causing the nonsense in the display. I did notice it happened worse/more often on hotter days.

 

Thanks for this. It is not what I really wanted to hear since to pay for this myself, it will be very expensive to just replace parts until I hit the bad one. However your experience is very helpful. Thanks again.

 

UPDATE:

I just wanted to update the thread with the fix that I got. I took it to the Dealer, and the Tech said that the Standard Operating Fix for this problem is the replacement of the CD PLAYER/RADIO head unit. I have the stock single disc unit, which they replaced for around $150 labor included to install. I have not had the problem since, but it has been cool since then too so I can't say for sure that it is fixed, but they seemed confident that the Radio was the culprit. I have had the new radio for a couple of months now.

If it comes back, I'll post again, but for now, I am assuming that it is fixed.

 

im having the same issue is there a fix for this yet? I usally get this when the car gets really hot and the sun beams on the LCD screen for a period of time but after the car cools down it goes back to normal.

But the temp's here in Chi are 40 and down. any suggestions?

 

Off topic reply : You did it wrong. Its B, A, Start (or Select Start if you wanna 2 players)

FOOL ! :P

I dont know why ppl need 30 lives tho. I beat that game without dying. Yeah its a bit hard, but I did it after like 20 zillion times of dying/trying/remembering all the way to dodge those bullets.

 

The techs at the dealership were pretty confident that it was the CD player causing the problem.

Since I got the new CD player, the display has been rock solid perfect, but again it has not been exposed to high heat since that time.

Mazda is saying that the CD player is the problem, and I can't dispute that.