Hi Gang,

I've noticed a few times when playing the stock Infinity sound system in my 04' Crossfire that at one exact point on a daily highway route the FM station which is a preset gets changed or "pulled" to another ststion at a lower frequency!

Here's the condition: the preset is for 93.9FM. Out where I live in the Lehigh Valley of PA that is an NPR radio station WDIY. When driving to work in New Jersey I drive on the interstate over a mountain. That mountain is the physical dividing line between FM stations transmitting from the Lehigh Valley and stations from New York City. So when approaching the top of the mountain WDIY goes out and is replaced by WNYC in New York (same frequency - 93.9 and also an NPR station so it is frequently transmitting the same program).

However, here's the kick: when approaching the zenith of the mountain heading eastbound for a brief moment a radio station from somewhere in the Delaware Valley of PA at frequency 92.3 will interfere and more times than not, the stereo will re-tune to 92.3 all by itself!

This condition does not occur with the Becker stereo in my Mercedes-Benz SL, nor does it occur with my Lincoln. Only this infinity radio in my Crossfire!

Has anyone ever see anything like this occur and / or is there something I can adjust or reset to prevent this from occuring?

Thanks!
-George-

 

Can't help with a fix, but I can confirm you are not going crazy...
This summer I drove from Denver to Detroit and back 3 times, and every time I went past a 40 mile stretch near Ogallala Nebraska, the radio would jump from the (only) classic rock station 94.3 (or thereabouts) to 104.something, a country station, bypassing several stations in between. ( not just the next signal on the dial, and both stations had strong clear signals)
Sometimes passing a truck would trigger it, sometimes it was entirely random. Sometimes it would stay on the rock station for 5-6 minutes, sometimes only seconds, but it WOULD NOT hold the station. Bizzaar and maddening.
Don't know what the cause was but it was definately localized.
Often when it is cold outside, the Infinity head unit won't function at all and only displays "Chrysler" Turning the car off and back on after running for 5 minutes re-animates it.
I think the stock Infinity unit is junk IMO, but mine still works MOST of the time.....

 

Ok well I guess I'll sell my padded room at the county mental ward on eBay. Thanks for validating. What they SHOULD have done is stick with a Becker unit. However I suspect they went with the Infinity head along with alot of other little things with an eye to cheapening down the Crossfire to Chrysler standards. To buy a Mercedes version of the same car wasn't really all that much more yet the performance is essentially identical due to the SLK platform. I think they were concerned about making the two too similar quality wise and thereby dent Mercedes sales. So they used the Infinity radio along with all the model airplane plastic in the console and instrument board.

I bought mine as a daily driver so the interior didn't bother me. And I still got the performance at a better price point!

 

There are a few things they did to make the car be "not quite an SLK320", like rate the engine at 215 hp when, in the '320, it delivers 230 hp.
I have never understood if the RATING is different alone, or if they really did tune it to 215hp.

As to the radio problem, I have driven mine across country twice (I now have 97000 on it) and have never had the radio jump in frequency like some people say theirs does.
I attribute it to a setting somewhere in the radio, which invokes a scan function - but other than that, I have no clue. And I've been in radio for 30 years.

 

Yeah, me too ive been in radio about as long. Ghats shy I can't fathom it. Very wrird

 

Depending on the unit you have there is a function for emergency radio station tuning. If that is on it can trigger that. It is not the radio's fault, it is the station it picks up since they are transmitting the trigger signal over the air...most likely they don't know it either.

 

It may come as a surprise to you but the Infinity radio is made by Becker it is the same inside as other Beckers the trim is just different. So I guess that shoots the heck out of that theory.
Why it changes station has been discussed before and there was a thread on it, so stay tuned as they say in the radio industry.

 

That is correct. Harman International, the parent to Harman Becker essentially rebranded the Becker Traffic Pro High Speed for the nav unit and a standard Becker head unit for the Crossfire, and they have done the same in Ferarri and other high end Euro cars. The one thing we all need to keep in mind is that there are some features that are in these units that while nice to have in Europe, have little support here in the U.S. Things like RDS and Emergency radio while robust in other countries at the time, were underutilized in the U.S.

What is also apparent here on the boards is that people identify "the amp" as just an amp when it is not. Contained in that little box are some amplifier modules plus a digital front end with eq and limiters that enable (at first) the Harman team to tune the car. During the evolution of the technology used in the Crossfire there are times when the car companies "retune" the systems based on their customer/owner profile. That is not to say its better, actually from looking at the curves before and after I can safely say many of the automakers have no clue what sounds good. The driver material in the OEM speakers was also an industry first. Derived form the flagship Infinity Prelude MTS and Intermezzo home speaker lines, the drivers used a ultra low distortion cone material that was so stiff that the resonance of the cone was pushed way beyond the crossover points and for the tweeter out past 40khz that at the time made them the most neutral OEM speakers sold. That included the system produced for BMW and Mercedes at the time.