What year was your OEM head unit when it failed?

[tof]

If you have an OEM head unit that has failed, eg: no sound, no display, static, etc, what year NSX was it from?

I'm trying to gather data on OEM head unit life expectancy. I know there may be factors other than age, eg. time in use, volume, etc. But Lets start by identifying the model years in which radio failure is most frequent, adjusted for number of cars imported each year. Seems like a lot of units from 91s have failed over the last year or two with leaking capacitors.

Feel free to share a head unit story if you have one.

 

[JD Cross]

My 91 head unit has not quite failed but will any day now.

 

[BTL3.0]

My old 93 failed over a year ago. Now I'm using one from an 05. Seem OK so far.

 

[Wavey1]

My '92 failed in 2011.

 

[Burny-B]

My '91 failed at 23 years old, somewhere early 2014. No sound/display, nothing.

 

[nikey22]

you have to be careful not to confuse some of these symptoms with AMP failures, rather than assuming head-unit is bad.
Much more common to see AMPs fail

 

[BTL3.0]

My head unit die AFTER the amps were repaired. Not right away, but couple months later.

 

[GraemeD]

I'm not sure this data will do any good. I don't think Acura/Honda will help and we have seen that Alpine is not interested. The stuff breaks when it gets old! and it is no longer economically feasible to repair it.

But if you are asking, my car is a '91 and the head unit died last month. so 24 years. (unless someone before me replaced it.)

 

[cmthomson]

The head unit in my 92 still works, although I very rarely use it. All three amps failed about 8 years ago and were swapped out.

 

[BB]

At around the 23 year mark I began experiencing many electronic module failures in my car, but my 91 head unit is still working fine. However the recent uptick in head unit failures has me concerned that we're on the cusp of this becoming as common as CCU failure.

 

[tof]

I'm not sure this data will do any good. I don't think Acura/Honda will help and we have seen that Alpine is not interested. The stuff breaks when it gets old! and it is no longer economically feasible to repair it.

But if you are asking, my car is a '91 and the head unit died last month. so 24 years. (unless someone before me replaced it.)

Just seems like good information, especially for folks looking at NSXs as their next toy. This site should inform about "what to watch for" as well as all that is good and righteous about the NSX experience. Also it may help answer the question, "If my 91/92 NSX oem head unit goes south, would it make more sense to try and get a used unit from a later year NSX, or should I just install a new aftermarket head unit?"

Thanks for adding another data point, GraemeD.

 

[BB]

I keep thinking we need to create a global NSX organization that can address our long term support concerns to Honda as one unified voice. If a part is discontinued yet enough members need it, the organization could work together with Honda to do a single manufacturing run or "group buy". Perhaps the NSXCA could combine forces with their Japanese and European counterparts to make Honda see that it's in their best interest to work with us. To me this is far more important than things such as an annual NSXPO event.

 

[greenberet]

I fully agree with BB that it would be great if we could get Honda to continue supporting their former halo car. If things like the manual steering rack are discontinued, that's not good. Honda should support the NSX like BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, etc. support their classic cars.

Regarding the head unit, you can find some more information over on the NSX Club of Britain's website. See here: http://www.nsxcb.co.uk/blog.php?1811&blogcategoryid=44. Kaz was one of the engineers on the original NSX's design team and he services, among other things, the head units. I had a head unit serviced by him as preventative maintenance so I hope it will continue to work flawlessly for many years to come.

 

[BB]

How much did he charge to redo your head unit?

 

[greenberet]

I forget exactly how much it cost. Your best bet is to contact Kaz directly to check the current price. The refurbishment wasn't exactly cheap but it cost a LOT less than the $3000 Honda charge for a new head unit.

After 24 years, my USDM head unit was still going strong but since I live in Europe, I bought an EDM head unit and had that refreshed before installing it. Hopefully it will outlast me!

 

[GraemeD]

Take mine off the list.
$8 worth of capacitors, some circuit board repair and it's back in action.

Thanks to Kaz's blog with lots of photos. Without that I probably would not have tried the repair. Well I might have tried, with a much smaller chance at success.

 

[tlow]

Take mine off the list.
$8 worth of capacitors, some circuit board repair and it's back in action.

Thanks to Kaz's blog with lots of photos. Without that I probably would not have tried the repair. Well I might have tried, with a much smaller chance at success.

GraemeD, would you work on mine if I sent to you, paid for parts and labor?

 

[nsx_2k]

Out of curiosity, has anyone noticed any particular behavior/symptoms prior to the head unit failing (ie. hissing, popping, lights going out, etc)?

 

[GraemeD]

Mine did pop once or twice about 3 seconds before it went silent.
As for working on other head units, I don't really have the time. This was just an attempt to fix my broken parts, maybe you can find a local electronics enthusiast and guide them with what to look for.

 

[ftuhy]

In 2005 my head unit failed a couple days after the car was parked with the top off and got caught in a sudden thunderstorm. I had the head unit repaired by a shop in Syracuse, NY and it has worked fine ever since. The shop said they found an intermittent connection, which is quite feasible if water got in there. 76kmi on the car now, no problems with the amps or further problems with the head unit .

(Also, no problem with Bose amps or head end on my '84 Corvette with 101kmi, other than having to spray some cleaner into the volume control.)

The CCU has some bad circuit design along with capacitors with a possible short life. The head unit has just the short lifetime issue. But, lifetime not related to bad circuit design is a statistical distribution - they all don't fail at the same time and some can last a very long time. In the CCU, three particular capacitors are the ones that fail quite early & predictably.

 

[tof]

Thanks for the additional info and data points, Frank.

I'm thinking there COULD be an expiration date of 22-25 years on 91 and 92 radios. I don't know this to be the case, although I have read some speculation here on Prime that there were issues with the caps in the first Alpine production run. Rumor has it (and I stress that I have NO truly reliable source for this) that Alpine was using a new vendor or that the vendor who supplied the caps was using a new electrolyte that is the root of the problem. Supposedly the cap manufacturer corrected the problem at some point. So earlier and later Alpine products would not be subject to that particular issue. Anyway, my intention in starting this thread was to help the community get a feel for the failure rate among head units produced in the first couple of years.

 

[don356]

My low mile(29k) 91 is starting to act a little finicky as well so i suspect i'm in the same boat. I had two of the speakers rebuilt by bose over the years. I'm not up to speed on all the stereo chatter, but is there an after market alternative out there to go with without hacking up the car with installation?

 

[ThumperAC]

Take mine off the list.
$8 worth of capacitors, some circuit board repair and it's back in action.

Thanks to Kaz's blog with lots of photos. Without that I probably would not have tried the repair. Well I might have tried, with a much smaller chance at success.

link to this blog please?

 

[GraemeD]

link to this blog please?

http://www.nsxcb.co.uk/blog.php

 

[foundry3]

1991 and still going with LOTS of use (115k) however the button lights recently went out and some knuckle head before me scratched up the buttons. I bought a replacement since I can't stand the scratched buttons and lights out but have yet to put it in.