My Bad Luck :(
 

Yep... My KDCX979 head unit is kaput.

History - I bought a KDCX969 about.... 3 1/2 years ago. It kept breaking down every few months, and was in the shop(s) for warranty service five times over it's two year warranty. It would "lose it's brain" and just do goofy things. Each time it went for service it would take weeks and weeks, I was without the thing for five of the 23 months I owned it. The fifth, and last time, was on the 23rd month I owned it. I wrote a letter to Kenwood asking them to replace the lemon, and so they did, with this KDCX979.

This KDCX979 was a better unit, and proved to be a little more reliable, but not much. After four months of owning it, the flip-out started screwing up on cold mornings, and when it got worse, the flip would freak and shut the unit off, and ya couldn't make it work, till it warmed up.

So I took it to my stereo dudes here in Calgary, he replaced a ribbon cable in the flip out that has a micro-slider (about 5mm) that tells the brain where the flip is at all times. The slider fell apart as he dissasembled. Put it all back together and it was great again. He also said that this replacement unit was obviously not new either, it had obviously been serviced before, loose cables and whatnot.

Also, an unrelated problem that I just live with 'cause no one (not my stereo dudes, not Kenwood, and not Sirius) can tell me why, I added an SIR-KEN1 last June, and if you just shut the deck power off without putting the HU into Standby first, the Sirius tuner "looses it's brain" and will not work the next time you power up. To fix, just place the HU in Standby, power down for 10-15 seconds, power up, and all will be fine again. Ya, weird.

Swell. So it lasted another four months or so.... and started screwing up again three months ago. Almost the same thing, when cold, the flip would freak out. So I set it to it's minimum tilt settings and that, and slight finger pressure on the right side of the flip, would get it to power up, and then driving for a living (I don't anymore, for the last two months), I would just leave it open all day, setting the Source to Standby when I'm not actually in the van.

So the other day I hop in and do the same thing, hold the right side while powering up, and the face came out, freaked out, and then just stopped. No lights, no nothing. Shut it off, the face doesn't close or anything, stuck open. A little fiddling, can sometimes make the flip move a bit, but no lights, el deadski.

So I took it to Rod & Russ. The stuck the new flip out cable it needed in, and now it's still fuxored. It's stuck in some weird tech mode or something... He sez "if you just hit reset, it won't work at all... to make it work, ya gotta hold 1 & 3 and hit the reset button, that'll make it so you have some sound at least, but no faders, eq's, xo's, or anything like that. All we can do next is ship it off to Kenwood and see what they say."

I noticed that if you push the 1,2,3,4,5,6 buttons it'll switch around some weird tech mode, showing "cd hours" and that kindsa thing.

Oy. No... wait wait... Gimme it. I dunno what I'm gonna do, I have no warranty on this one, my warranty ran out on the old one a year and a half ago, even though this one is supposed to be only a year and half old.

So I'm tired of fighting with Kenwood, they never answered my emails or faxes before, I'm thinkin' they'll just try to ignore me again... I was thinking I'd write them and ask for a deal on a new unit, I'll trade this sucker in... but, again... really tired of fighting with them.

So my stereo dudes sell Soundstream, Directed, and Clarion as well. Not liken' the looks of the Soundstream head units, they got all the features but their manuals read suspiciously just like Kenwoods... probably made at the same plant in China or something...

So.. I'm thinkin' I'll ask Tom to gimme a smokin' deal on moving over to Clarion, a VRX765VD and a DVH940 would do the job quite nicely I thinks... I'd have to get a new Sirius tuner (and sell or trade in my existing one) and loose my cd changer (maybe Rod'll trade me back the 12disk one I won and traded him for my Kenwood 6 disk one)...

Ow... my brain hurts that's a lot of typing... Sorry if ya read this far ;)

At least I got a week or two to think about what to do, everybody's shut down for the season.

What....no way....it's not April 1 yet.

i personally posted contact information phone numbers peoples names
so if your failure to contact these people is your own fault
and some of the initial sirus pieces were bad
if your dealer had made a call to sirus [ericson]
who are the ones who distribute the tuners that would have had your problem resolved along time ago
me personally i think its the people you deal with
that are the problem
my service issues get delt with pronto and are repaired right 99.999% of the time
the first time

and i also suggested a service depot to use
so its your fault
not anybody elses

how can you say its his fault the deck kept messing up?
kenwood has really really bad customer relations.
when my amp messed up it went through 3 different certified shops for someone to finally tell me it was blown.
kenwood licks balls! in general. everything about them is junk.

probably has to do with the out west service
as i said i don't have that problem
the only problem i can see you having is who you deal with
if a piece is not repaired properly then problems reoccur
i've seen poor service before
thats why i reccomended a place that does good service
and being a dealer i wouldn't stand for bad customer service
too bad your dealer dosn't do the same

spoken by a true uneducated consumer

My KDC-MP822 died too
 

I know the feeling.. My MP822 also died.. back in april / one month out of warranty.

The MP822 was like your original 969, same front motorized display.. I remember how excited you were with the 979 in replacment.

Mine still worked mechanically - just would not read a CD.. I had the shop look at it, clean it - it started working again - worked great - I gave it to another member on the board cause i already replaced it with another kenwood deck , but the MP822 is now giving the member a mechanical error and not working properly.

If i had kenwoods address i would fire it through the front window of the building, but the website doesn't work for contacting them so i guess i go without..

so im supposed to be dedicated to a company that makes a junk product, and backs it with even worse service?

I had a KDC X979 to it was down all the time. Kenwood sucks. Got a ALpine deck and it is still running. Not saying to go with alpine but throw the kenwood out.

as i said incase you have poor reading comprehension that i provided names and phone numbers to get proper service
thats your problem
your dealer may feel poor service is satifactory i don't
its like anything some places take care of you and some don't
sorry you chose to purchase form a dealer with poor service
i've been a kenwood dealer for 15 years and there failure rate is not what you make it
its not junk
i've also had kenwood service product well after warrany period was over
and you won't see that from any other company