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Radio stays on when ignition is in the off position

86K views 20 replies 14 participants last post by  Red Raspberry 
#1 ·
Greetings new member here;
I own a 2013 Elantra GT that my wife drives. We have had it since late September 2012, so it is about 20 months old now, with only 2250 miles.
Yes, I know, it is not even broken in yet.
Anyway, yesterday when the wife returned from some shopping she told me that the radio in the car is still on after the engine was off, the ignition locked and the key in your hand.
I checked it out, and sure enough, the radio was still on. I restarted the car, and discovered the power button would not turn the radio off, the radio volume could not be changed, and the station could not be changed. Every control for the Audio system was inoperative, along with all the control buttons on the left side of the steering wheel.
Every thing else in the car appeared to work. When I shut the engine off, and removed the key, the radio still played on.
I took the car over to the dealership first thing this morning; the service rep, the service manager and a service tech could not figure it out. I had to leave the car with them, so that one of their Electronic Certified Techs who comes in later could check it out.
They drove the car to a service bay, and disconnected the battery, so the radio would not run the battery down.
When the tech came in, he reconnected the battery, and everything now works. They have no idea at all what happened.
Has anyone else seen this or heard of this?
Thanks;
Gregg
 
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#4 ·
Looks like the radio was frozen...
Even with the key in the OFF position, the radio still gets constant power to keep the clock ticking, but the head unit is supposed to turn off unless something weird happened and the radio software froze for some reason...
 
#5 ·
I had the opposite happen to me.

Turned the car on. Radio came on but was frozen. Could not change station, adjust volume, turn off, no steering wheel controls etc.

Turned the car off and on again. Radio was then off and would not even turn on.

Pulled the fuse cover and pushed the fuse to make sure it was seated (didn't have anything to pull the fuse to check it at the time). Turned the car on and everything was fine.

It has been fine for 2 weeks now. Never saw the issue before that. Hoping it was a one time thing.
 
#8 ·
I doubt the radio has a reset button either.

As someone else said, the radio is always on to some extent, just like most cell phones these days. Which means that, just like most cell phones, if the radio crashes and won't respond to inputs from the controls, it just keeps doing whatever it was doing when it crashed. (The power button doesn't actually disconnect power, it just tells the radio to go into a sleep mode.)

The easiest reset is to pull the radio fuse in the fusebox just above the driver's left knee. (I think it is called "Multimedia" or something like this.) This will cause a hard reboot and restore operation. Fortunately, station presets, bluetooth settings, etc. appear to be stored in non-volatile (or battery-backed) memory so they should stay around, although I don't know for how long.

Judging by the number of problems, the software in our radios is extremely buggy. I had my radio (non-nav) replaced after the third crash and the software version advanced from 1.00 to 1.02. In addition to the crashes, I was having a great deal of problem getting the radio to connect reliably for bluetooth streaming; the update only slightly improved the problem. Someone else has reported that that they had their radio replaced and got 1.05 which added some nice features like ID of song/artist during bluetooth streaming. There is also a rumor, based on a special mode you can put the radio in, that it might be possible to update the software via USB stick, but nothing has surfaced about Hyundai distributing new software this way and if you complain, the most the dealer will probably do is pull the radio and replace it. I'd take it in the "crashed" condition; otherwise, they'll probably just blow you off with a "could not replicate the problem."

- Mark
 
#11 ·
As I said in my original posting. The dealership disconnected the battery while waiting for one of their Electrical Techs to come in. When the Tech reconnected the battery, everything was fine, except the radio lost all its presets.
So, I figure it reset when the battery was reconnected.

The wife drove it to the grocery store today, and the radio worked normally.
Will watch it for the next few weeks.
One other interesting thing, it appears the radio only has a 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty, not the 7 year, 70,000 mile warranty the rest of the car has.
I would assume that is also true for Navigation Systems, backup cameras, and Blue Tooth.
Gregg
 
#13 ·
I've had the radio freeze again on me. Same as before.

Turned the car on. Radio is on but all buttons are frozen.
Turned car off and on again. Radio is dead. Nothing on.

Parked the car. Ran some errands a few hours later and radio is fine.

Very odd problem. I'm going to make a video next time so I can show the dealer. It's definitely going in for repair.
 
#16 ·
I have a 2016 Sonata and it randomly does the exact same thing! Not all the time but every so often. So if you leave the car it takes about 5 min and eventually the radio does shut off. But it always locks up again eventually. Can’t turn on if off. Can’t turn off if on. Can’t turn up volume. Clock freezes. I’ve over 70,000 miles do warranty 😰 I was told radio units are over $2000. So far it always resets itself after a day or two or a hour or two depending on its mood! Any other advice out there?
I've had the radio freeze again on me. Same as before.

Turned the car on. Radio is on but all buttons are frozen.
Turned car off and on again. Radio is dead. Nothing on.

Parked the car. Ran some errands a few hours later and radio is fine.

Very odd problem. I'm going to make a video next time so I can show the dealer. It's definitely going in for repair.
Hello, same exact problem here in my 2016 Sonata. Did you ever figure it out? Help!!
 
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