I have the stock HU in my '99 sedan, and the volume control lately has become erratic. What I mean is that sometimes when I am turning up the volume just a click or two of the ****, the volume will drop back down several steps. This is really annoying when you just want to turn the sound up a little and suddenly it goes really quiet!

So, anyone have any ideas on how to fix it? I found an online shop that quotes repairs for factory radios here. I am guessing my model is the FMS because a) it looks like that and b) they quote repair on "erratic volume control" for that model and not for the lookalike Panasonic.

The radio looks like this but without the BOSE marking:

 

I would recommend just buying a new cd player. I was in Walmart last night and they had some bad-*** Sony's and Pioneer's there for $200. I bet your repairs to a stock cd player would be at least $100+shipping

 

Hell yeah, there is no way I am paying someone to repair this thing.
I'm game to do it myself, so that is why I am looking around to see if anyone else has run into this as well.

As for a replacement head unit, I have been looking at the Kenwood KDC-722 and the KDC-MP822.

Two things I really like are a) you can set the control pannel illumination to green (to match my 1999 dash lighting) and when you turn the car off the face flips around and exposes nothing to the street, just black plastic.

I just had an idea - a DIN sized sticker that looks like a boring factory radio. Stick that on the closed face and when people look in the window, they see some cheap looking AM radio or something.

 

hahaha! like the Chameleon car cover skit on SNL....the car that looks like butt from the outside, but on the inside it's like a jaguar!