Weird situation with FM radio

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NHPilot

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I have a weird thing going on with the FM radio. About a month back, I took my Volt into a repair shop to have the heater repaired. I had the shop info on my phone and in Waze. Now my Clarity is showing the shop web address and phone number, as well as another auto shop name on the FM radio instead of the song name and artist. I did a factory reset of the head unit and it reset everything but the radio...It didn't even wipe my radio presets. Has anyone heard of this strangeness and does anyone have any idea on how to fix this? It is beyond annoying!

Thanks!
 
This is just so weird that it seems nobody knows how to answer you.

Can you elaborate a little more? I am assuming this occurs when your phone is tethered to the Clarity running Android Auto (or CarPlay)? If you do NOT tether the phone, does the FM radio still show the auto shop info instead of the artist? If only when connected, does it occur only when running Waze, or does it happen with other Apps (such as Google Maps) too?
 
MrFixit said:
This is just so weird that it seems nobody knows how to answer you.

Can you elaborate a little more? I am assuming this occurs when your phone is tethered to the Clarity running Androiphd Auto (or CarPlay)? If you do NOT tether the phone, does the FM radio still show the auto shop info instead of the artist? If only when connected, does it occur only when running Waze, or does it happen with other Apps (such as Google Maps) too?
Click to expand...

That's what makes it so weird...no phones are tethered or connected...as a matter of fact, after my second reset of the head unit, I have no phones set up at all, bluetooth or otherwise. No carplay or android auto, just FM radio. The RDS just shows the two auto shop "ads" instead of the song title and artist.

The radio doesn't reset after resetting the head unit...The radio presets etc, do not reset. Does anyone know how to reset the radio itself?
 
Well, This may seem like an obvious and dumb thought, but from the manual, there is a way to turn off (or on) the radio text.
It is bizarre that you get the auto shop info, but maybe the text display got turned off somehow, and it is just frozen (displaying something from the past), and if it is turned back on, it will overwrite the bogus information:

upload_2021-8-1_17-53-34.webp
 
MrFixit said:
Well, This may seem like an obvious and dumb thought, but from the manual, there is a way to turn off (or on) the radio text.
It is bizarre that you get the auto shop info, but maybe the text display got turned off somehow, and it is just frozen (displaying something from the past), and if it is turned back on, it will overwrite the bogus information:

View attachment 12971
Click to expand...

I have done that already....It doesn't turn the text on or off, but only just shows what text is being displayed....which is the auto shop info with no way to reset it...still digging into the menu to see if I can turn off RDS..
 
You can always try the "Nuclear" option. It is not at all clear that it would help your situation, but disconnecting the negative terminal of the 12V battery for a few minutes is sort of a hard reset for the vehicle. After doing this, you will get an array of ominous sounding errors / failures when you start the vehicle again. These will go away after driving for a few miles. If you do this, it would be a good ideal to check that your tire pressures are all good and run a TPMS calibration.

No idea whether this will have any effect, but you are grasping for straws !
 
Thank you Sir, I was thinking about doing that...I found how to turn off the RDS and just may leave it off....If something strange is going to happen that no one has ever heard of, it will happen to me!
 
Well I found out what is happening with the radio. I called the garage where I had the heater work done on my Volt and asked if they had reprogramed the head unit. As the ads where showing on both the Volt and my Clarity, I thought that I the Volt had somehow infected my phone which in turn infected the Clarity. Turns out it is a new marketing scheme with the radio station where the ads are pushed out over RDS. It was just a million to one coincidence that I had taken my Volt into them right when they started the advertising. Like I said earlier....If something strange is going to happen that no one has ever heard of, it will happen to me!
 
Wait... So you are saying that your RDS has been working fine all along?
The way you were describing this, I made the assumption that this "problem" affected any radio station on the FM dial.

So now, I assume this only affected the station that you happen to listen to (you never tried others?). Anyone else who listens to this radio station has been getting this advertisement, and no information about song / artist? How long will this go on for? It seems like people will be perturbed if all they get from this station is an advertisement for a car repair shop.

This is very weird. It sounds like you must be a magnet for very weird phenomena.
 
I had tried other stations and they were fine...just the local FM station. I thought it was a glitch or the garage had reprogrammed the unit and I had gotten infected. I didn't even know that RDS advertising was a thing! Just a strange, strange coincidence that I had take the car to a garage that I had never been to before right before the ads for said garage started.

I am a rare earth magnet for the weird and inexplicable...
 
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