fastbackford351

I have the base stereo in my 02 and it has worked fine up until recently. At first you couldn't lessen the volume, going left with the **** did nothing and had to use the mute. Now it has progressed to where the functions are actually inverted, ie. turning the **** left increases the volume and going right (usually) lessens it.

I suspect the culprit is dirt behind the ****. I tried to pull the **** straight off but it didn't seem to want to come off so I didn't force it.

Thoughts, ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Z28KLR

The 6CD changer Mach head unit my car had did something similar, try to turn it down and it would just go up. Was worse or more pronounced during cold weather.

I did what most people end up doing and replaced it w/ aftermarket. I suppose it would be worth trying to remove the **** and give a couple blasts of electronics contact cleaner in there as best as you can, but I wouldn't hold out much hope. If you're feeling really brave you could try to take it all apart and you may have better access to clean something that way, but good luck putting it back together successfully.

Depending on what you want, new head unit ain't too expensive and you'd be done with the bs fpr good, so that gets my vote.

cliffyk

Do not use contact cleaner! The control is a rotary encoder, not a potentiometer as used in older radios. It works by sending pulses to the head unit's microcontroller telling it how much and in what direction the **** has been turned--as years go by they fill up with dust/lint/etc. and the pulse output gets "goofy".

If you can get the radio opened up you can often used compressed air to blow out the control housing. The problem with using contact cleaner is that most such products also contain lubricants which trap any existing dust in the control; and will attract more...

NFLcheesehead1

Digging this thread up, as I have the same problem with my volume know on my 04 mustang GT. I turn the **** left, but the volume increases instead of decreases...super annoying and scares the living crap out of me sometimes.

Has anyone tried the compressed air trick? I'm thinking about giving it a try, but where exactly do I want to spray the air...I really don't wanna take apart a bunch of stuff.