Audio Systems: Stereo display, lexus gs 400, liquid crystal materials

Question
Hello,

first of all I'd like to thank you for offering free advice.

I have a problem with my car stereo. It's a radio, casette player and 5 CD changer. It came with the Lexus GS 400 and about a year ago the display started showing blanks and now it is almost completelly blank, only a few sticks show instead of letters and numbers. Do you know what may cause this?

Thank you,
Max

Answer
You are welcome. Most of the experts at allexperts are just ordinary people who enjoy the stimulation of answering difficult questions and who enjoy helping others.  We receive no renumeration; just your kind thoughts.

The display materials are usually liquid crystal materials with a backlight to light them up.  This material can fail if contamination or oxygen gets into the hermetically sealed area of the display segments. Blank segments can also be from the electronic drivers that apply the polarizing voltages to that segment.

So, in your case, a technician would have to examine the unit to determine if it is the driver IC chip or the display itself that is failing.  The repair is likely to be quite expensive.

Hope this helps.

Cleggsan

PS:  I would suggest you take it to a good installer/repair place before going back to the car dealer; generally, car dealers do not have electronics skill and their OEM replacements are very expensive.