[notaguru]

Our 2012 Volt went 60k miles without flaw.

After 13 months, our 2017 Premier has about 11k miles on it. A month ago it received the free one year checkup and maintenance, with no issues detected.

Yesterday, problems appeared with the main information screen. First, the radio volume control stopped working. A little later, the screen went dark. Nothing I did would light it up, though I could operate radio volume and station-select with the paddle controls. Today, everything works properly.

As an engineer, I suspect a connector. Confirming and fixing that would require getting into the dashboard, which is probably no fun at all.

After 13 months, is this covered by warranty? Have others had similar problems and, if so, how were they addressed?

Thanks, gurus!

 

[sniper27]

This should be covered by your 3yrs/36k miles warranty. I had a similar experience on my 2018. Car had 48 miles on it and the screen stopped responding to all commands. Onstar said to turn the car off, exit, lock the car and wait about 5 minutes. Then come back in and start the car as normal and everything should reset. It hasn't happened since this incident about 3 weeks ago.

 

[gocheif]

Had this experience in both our Volt and Bolt. The car's radio has now become a complex linux based computer that occasionally misbehaves. A reboot is always the fix and sometimes happens automatically after a few min. This happens 2 or 3 times a year and is annoying but harmless.

 

[schwartzeneger]

It should still have the 3 yr bumper to bumper warranty, so it should be covered.

 

[marcusm]

What you describe has happened to me occasionally for several years in my 16. As the other poster correctly states, it’s a reboot fix. It is a software issue, not a hardware issue in my opinion. That touchscreen interface is the only problem I have ever had with the car. It almost always works fine, but it does act up occasionally, and the fix is to do exactly as suggested.


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[Qinsp]

Are you waiting the full requested time before putting the car in gear?

That pretty much eliminated all intermittent errors.

 

[RePo]

Do you have a large USB thumb drive connected- 32GB or larger?

 

[marcusm]

Do you have a large USB thumb drive connected- 32GB or larger?

I do — 128 GB worth — and I’m sure given all the files involved, that is part of it.


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[RePo]

I would say with confidence that it won't happen when that stick is disconnected.
I have one that screws it up too, not sure if it's the size of the thumbdrive, or the non-audio content on it.

 

[hellsop]

I'm beginning to suspect that the Infotainment system just doesn't like (in a non-understood way) insertable media with more than (for example) 32GB of audio files. It seemed to handle bigger collections well only most of the time.

 

[edk-austin]

Looking at my 2014 Infotainment manual, there are some restrictions of supporting FAT32 USB drives.
. less than 10,000 audio files
. no system attributes on audio files/folders
. max folder depth=8
. playlist paths must be relative

Generally, there have often been issues when storage formats cross major size boundaries. Like 32GB...

exFAT is not supported by GM yet (AFAIK). Maybe 2019 Volt with Infotainment System 3 ?

 

[FI Spyder]

Typically the infotainment (in the olden days referred to as a radio) can handle the size of a thumb drive that was prevalent when it was designed. I have a manual tuner radio in my TR7 with SSD and USB slots, looks like a period piece (1980) except for the slots and it only handles up to 4 Mb. Fortunately there is no problem getting a less than (even 512 Mb. USB) for a few bucks from Hong Kong etc. often with free shipping.

 

[edk-austin]

Scary to think that the day will come when cars don't have traditional AM/FM radios, and kids will ask "what's a radio?"
(maybe that day has already come)
I know some cars no longer have AM radios.

 

[somms]

Scary to think that the day will come when cars don't have traditional AM/FM radios, and kids will ask "what's a radio?"
(maybe that day has already come)

Caught my kid actually using his 'radio' the other day...he asked his echo dot to 'tune in rock 106.7' which happens to be a Canadian radio station...

 

[dannycamps]

Scary to think that the day will come when cars don't have traditional AM/FM radios, and kids will ask "what's a radio?"
(maybe that day has already come)
I know some cars no longer have AM radios.

Don't Teslas not have AM/FM radios? I recall reading they were getting some complaints for that due to radio being a critical means of communication in an emergency.

Regarding the issue with the Infotainment system, I had the exact same thing happen to my Volt ('17). While it will be covered under warranty, try the simple fix first of pulling the three radio fuses out and putting them back in (RADIO, INFOTAINMENT, and DISPLAY) - you have to get all three. That is what resolved the issue on my car and it's been fine since.

 

[wws]

Don't Teslas not have AM/FM radios? I recall reading they were getting some complaints for that due to radio being a critical means of communication in an emergency...

The Model 3 doesn't have AM broadcast band radio, but the FM band is there. In my case the AM station I often listen to is easily received via streaming.