n25sh

I'm on my second Skipper 500. Symptoms are unchanged except the new unit doesn't seem to have the intermittent problems as often. Then again, the original's error rate increased over time. I almost exclusively play factory disks (my CD collection predates Napster et. al. & good cheap CD burners).

My current complaints:

Always: annoying pause between tracks--I've had at least a dozen CD players and only the Skipper does that! What's really strange about that is, on the CDA format (factory or burned) the normal silent (or not) gap between tracks is recorded onto the disk so somebody went to some trouble to design the Skipper to locate and remove those chunks of silence, replacing them with manufactured silence. Definite, no-question-about-it design flaw.

About once per hour: a short (<1/2 second) burst of sound during the annoying pause--sounds like a chunk of the track that's about to play.

About once per 5-10 hours of use: skips, usually forward a second or ten but sometimes to the beginning of the current or next track. It will do this while crusing down a straight, flat, smooth road. I've had one Sony skip repeatedly, but only when I hit several serious bumps within a few seconds, and within weeks of the unit failing completely.

Maybe once per 20-50 hours of use: Locks up, usually after a seek but sometimes not. I turn mine off to recover, but I've never waited more than a minute to let it try to fix itself.

The old one would also spit disks out, calling them bad, but then accepting them if reinserted. This was rare, and I've not had the new unit long enough to say whether that problem's gone or not.

So far as it being a hardware or software problem, I'd have to say it's both, built on a faulty system design. The software probably makes assumptions about the hardware that aren't justified by the actual factory hardware quality. That would explain why some units are trouble free, most have minor-to-moderate error rates, and some are complete junk. It probably all worked great on the hand-built/hand-tweaked prototype units (except for the annoying pause, which must be deliberate), but the production units are mass produced by the lowest bidder, and Ford's not known for imposing the quality ethic on their suppliers.

rattsj

I dumped that piece of crap the first month I owner her. That thing shouldn't even be an option it's worthless. Went with the kenwood keg. Save all the mp3's you want to the hard drive and forget about all the bad things that are related to cd's and ipods sliding around in the cabin.

rebelyell06

That is exactly the problem I have with burnt discs. Fine the first few tracks, but can't even listen to the last few. Though it wouldn't be worth my time to buy a new system because the only time the thing is on is when I either have an un burnt disk or my sister is riding with me listening to her crap. I usually just ride with my windows down and listen to that beautiful tune called 40 series flowmasters.

Fizzie06

I have the shaker 1000 and never had a problem...

sl8anic

Mine has identical problems, dealer is ordering a second unit but if it works OK I'll end up selling it (since I already got an aftermarket unit). The poll results aren't too encouraging - in the best possible scenario only ~1/3 of the Shaker systems work as designed (sound gap complaint excluded).

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amptor

Wow I hope mine doesn't skip, my car hasn't been delivered yet. On my vw bug I've been through 3 decks (of course, the car didn't come with a radio in the first place) First clarion was great, didn't skip but didn't have mp3 and was a pullout and a little water got in through the cowl and ruined the CD player's internal amplifier for CDs (radio amp still worked). Then the second clarion was a piece of junk, managed to hawk it on ebay and upgraded to an mp3 clarion and it works fine. I can even drive across a bumpy bridge for over a minute and it won't skip, the clarion CD I had before would skip like nuts. I thought anything mp3 these days wouldn't skip. The bug seems like it rides smoother than the mustang I test drove too, but maybe it's the cushoning of the seat or I'm too used to the car. So I think if this unit skips there's probably enough TSBs out that maybe the one I'm getting is updated or you know, we all have 3 year / 36000 miles so within that timeframe it should get fixed up straight and ford probably won't mind since most people aren't noticing the skipping so just a few will get it replaced. I'll keep an eye out and let you guys know how mine turns out. Looks like from what I read on this forum you have to take apart a lot of the dash to get the thing out, so I probably won't be posting a date of manufacture on the thing. I thought all ford radios just required one slide tool to take them out, my dad used to replace radios all the time at albany ford.

Btw oddly on this sound system, it seems like all the bass is coming from the front of the car? those speakers up front look too large for door speakers, the bass should be coming from the back. The speakers look really cool though in the door panels heh you can't even fit speakers in the door panels of my other car, I had to put them in the kick panels.

Remrats1234

works just fine for me

Mustang Bob

I've had my 06 GT Vert for three months and I'm on my second Shaker 500. The first one locked up and the disply read "Initializing". It wouldn't eject, play or load another CD. The second one keeps deciding on it's own which track it want's to play. It will skip a track or two every so often.