Kenwood KDC-X817 'tuner error' message

jbveale · #1 04-12-2012, 12:24 AM

I hope I'm in the right forum, my apologies if I'm not.

This is an older Kenwood deck that was in a used car I bought. I've listened to Sirius for about 6 years on it and recently Sirius stopped working. The display on the unit shows "tuner error" when I try to select Sirius. I talked to a couple of shops but they weren't terribly useful or made me feel they had much of an idea how to troubleshoot the problem.

I've tried unplugging the unit to power it down but there's no change in the error message. The CD, AM and FM still works.

**drdroo** · #2 04-12-2012, 07:14 AM

Do you happen to know what model tuner you have? Some were REALLY old and kind of problematic while some were a bit more recent. It also helps to know as far as your options go.

jbveale · #3 04-12-2012, 08:48 AM

According to my paperwork, it's an KTC-SR903. I have not gone and verified that against the unit itself.

Brad Bishop · #4 04-12-2012, 09:03 AM

Something to try:

Unplug the cable from the tuner and from the back of the head unit. Then plug them back in. Maybe the cables just got loose enough to where they can power up but can't communicate.

My old Kenwood Tuner (I think 2nd gen from 2004) is still going strong in my daughter's car. She can't get the extra channels (like BoX) but each day it powers up and is happy. The tuner is on it's 3rd vehicle.

**drdroo** · #5 04-12-2012, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbveale

According to my paperwork, it's an KTC-SR903. I have not gone and verified that against the unit itself.

I don't have a ton of bad notes for that model. SR901s were a bit of a headache and had firmware problems (which caused Tuner Errors all over the place for me, which were fixed with the SR902 and up). After the SR904, the SR50/SCC1 combo kit was the Kenwood kit.

I think Brad's suggestion is a good one. It could also be a bad antenna or a bad tuner if his suggestion doesn't work out. On one of mine I had to unplug the comm cable on both ends and re-plug it (it's worth checking to make sure all 13 pins are on each end too), then also unplug the bus cable (the main cable to the radio from the dash) to reset the head unit to defaults.

Worst case you can always move the subscription over to the new Kenwood setup, which does support Sirius Premier. That would be the more difficult/expensive road to take certainly.
Kenwood Sirius Connect Package | TSS-Radio

Some of the older tuners do just up and fail, though the in-dash tuners are generally more reliable than the portables of that era. Brad's story with his unit (which in 2004 would be 902 or 903 model) is a common experience.