FIXED: Speaker hiss even when muted?

[JP_]

I ended up getting told to take it back to the dealer I purchased from rather than the more local one. So I did that, and I'm getting the same "it's normal on these cars" spiel, supposedly straight from toyota themselves, not just the dealership.

Which is funny, when I sat in another two Supras on the day I dropped it off, with their Supra tech, and we verified it wasn't an issue on those. Absolute jokers.

At this rate I'm just going to take it to a BMW specialist and sod the 10yr warranty we get in the UK on toyota.

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[JP_]

Small update: tested out an ASD delete wiring harness which makes the audio signal bypass the ASD amp entirely. The hiss is still present. Must be the main amp or wiring/connection related.

I did discover there was a software update in 2016 for BMWs to address exactly this issue, and the dealership did mention trying a software update while they had it in. Unsure if we'd need a new software update for our cars though.

Details on that here https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2016/MC-10151201-9999.pdf

 

[DarknightSupra]

In my case they called me to update my Supra. I guess this is what they meant about updating it. They didn’t book me yet they are waiting until the Supra guy is available to check on it.

 

[JP_]

Yeah, I'm unsure if they actually performed this specific update or something else on my car, but either way whatever it was didn't resolve the issue. They seemed unwilling to go further and just gave me Toyota customer relations number and a case reference. Only things left are amp, head unit, and connections...

 

[JP_]

Small update: dealer will take it back in for more diagnostics/attempts. Weirdly I noticed the tone changes with the HU and Instrument cluster brightness slider, and seemingly with the weather! (Louder and higher pitched now it's cold).

Also turns out my HU is meant to have screen mirroring as an option and doesn't, so there's something a bit odd there too. Maybe related....

 

[B54]

Small update: dealer will take it back in for more diagnostics/attempts. Weirdly I noticed the tone changes with the HU and Instrument cluster brightness slider, and seemingly with the weather! (Louder and higher pitched now it's cold).

Also turns out my HU is meant to have screen mirroring as an option and doesn't, so there's something a bit odd there too. Maybe related....

Any more news?

I also have the same hiss from the speakers on my Jarama. Even when the speakers are fully muted. Not yet sure if I want to take much effort to resolve it as I feel I can live with it. But then again it shouldn't happen ?

 

[JP_]

Any more news?

I also have the same hiss from the speakers on my Jarama. Even when the speakers are fully muted. Not yet sure if I want to take much effort to resolve it as I feel I can live with it. But then again it shouldn't happen ?

Still waiting at the moment, dealer is going to try replacing the amp, hopefully they mean the main amp as bypassing the ASD amp achieved nothing, which I told them, but didn't get the impression they took it onboard. Should know more next week!

 

[JP_]

Any more news?

I also have the same hiss from the speakers on my Jarama. Even when the speakers are fully muted. Not yet sure if I want to take much effort to resolve it as I feel I can live with it. But then again it shouldn't happen ?

An update: the amp was replaced, no difference to the hiss. Had a chat with them when I went to pick up and they had been discussing this.

They compared to other cars - no issue. Surprise surprise. They confirmed the media setup is slightly different in the 3.0 Pro to the Jarama.. which I knew but hey ho, at least they've thought about it now. They didn't have any other cars with the 10 speaker setup to compare to, but.... they apparently searched pretty extensively for any similar cases other dealerships had seen or anyone else at Toyota globally and got nothing.

So, they said they're going to open a Compass case with Toyota Technical, with the full history of what's been attempted so far, recordings of the problem, etc. Hopefully from there we'll see some progress, but I'm mainly happy they've finally acknowledged it's an issue rather than trying to fob me off. Fingers crossed from here, and perhaps consider not taking your car in just yet in case they use mine as an example to claim it's normal

 

[DarknightSupra]

Seems that we are the only ones hearing that hiss thing ?
I just took it in to Toyota and they didn’t hear it. After a while they admit it that there’s a hiss sound. Asking me if I flashed my ECU, I was like no coz the car is locked ??‍
they said they’ll flash and update the ECU. “ we are still there “ and it maybe go away. I told them my friends had the same the problem and it won’t disappear after update.
Slow boring process to reach to the conclusion.

 

[JP_]

So the dealers had a response from Toyota central - even the dealer seemed stumped by this.

They were told this issue hasn't been reported before. They were asked to compare to another of the same car since the speaker setup is different to the 3.0L Pro. Good luck with that when there's maybe 30 of these total in the UK. They were also asked to disconnect all accessories and check if it still happens... Which we already know it does since all testing so far has been without anything connected, and they acknowledged this.

They were told it happens when muted because the amp stays on - well yeah, that's so the car can still play it's chimes etc...

Basically they were given no further advice on how to diagnose, so of course Toyota central or whatever you'd call them have no idea either.

I've asked what the next steps are if they're unable to resolve it and suggested a third party car audio shop may be able to sort this out, could they find out if Toyota will cover the cost? We'll see what they come back with. Should hear more from them next week.

 

[JP_]

Took the car to a third party car audio specialist, they diagnosed it as the head unit and advised getting Toyota to check that out before trying anything else. Toyota have the car next week with that info, will report back after!

 

[JP_]

For anyone following along, head unit was replaced, hiss is still present. Maybe marginally better as if it's lost a high pitched tone that was there before, but hard to tell as I've been without the car for a week. That could even be just from reseating connectors on the back of the head unit anyway.

The dealer have advised they've exhausted everything they can do, which feels fair enough at this point. I've asked for the compass case reference to pass on here, and any details I'll need to speak to someone from Toyota Customer Service about it. They seemed slightly evasive about giving me the case ref, but fingers crossed I get it soon so you can use that if you need to speak to a dealership about this.

They also said that they'll write this up as a product issue and pass it on to Toyota central, whatever that means. I'd give them a week or so to do that, but this might be the point where if you're having the issue with your car you should let your dealership know so that they have more examples of it and (I assume) can hence pass it on to BMW when they've collected a few. I'm hoping there's a fix possible in software at this point, whether we ever get one is another matter.

 

[JP_]

The dealership asked for the car back last week after Toyota's technical department asked them to bring it in for diagnostics. They had it in for a week. Pretty sure they did nothing to the car, I was watching the location on Supra connect and it did not budge, was in the same spot I parked it in. Theatrics.

Apparently Toyota technical are now claiming they've observed the issue on two separate other Jarama editions and consider it to be how the audio system in these is. That's pretty ridiculous for a brand new £50k+ car so I've complained, I'm not hopeful it'll go anywhere though. Love the car other than this, so guess I'll have to live with it until I can upgrade the entire audio system myself.

 

[B54]

The dealership asked for the car back last week after Toyota's technical department asked them to bring it in for diagnostics. They had it in for a week. Pretty sure they did nothing to the car, I was watching the location on Supra connect and it did not budge, was in the same spot I parked it in. Theatrics.

Apparently Toyota technical are now claiming they've observed the issue on two separate other Jarama editions and consider it to be how the audio system in these is. That's pretty ridiculous for a brand new £50k+ car so I've complained, I'm not hopeful it'll go anywhere though. Love the car other than this, so guess I'll have to live with it until I can upgrade the entire audio system myself.

Just thinking out of the box. Possibly a fix for this could be installing a denoiser/capacitor on the speaker lines.

I also wonder if this happens to vehicles suited with the "Premium" pack. Which in most if not all markets include the JBL sound system. All (European) Jarama's have no premium package.

@DarknightSupra Can you confirm if you have a Premium package Supra?

 

[JP_]

Just thinking out of the box. Possibly a fix for this could be installing a denoiser/capacitor on the speaker lines.

I wondered about this too, thanks for the idea - possibly, especially since it seems to be volume independent. Ultimately I imagine this would result in lower volume at the speakers and having to turn the head unit up, but that's fine considering it doesn't change the volume of the static.

I'll have a chat with an audio shop about doing this - I've searched around but not been able to find anything about doing this to an OEM BMW amp as a plug in harness or similar, and I'm not handy enough in these matters to sort something myself. Unless you happen to know of something that could achieve that simply?

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