Schizophrenic volume knob

[FSUZ33]

Pretty sure I know how this will end up, and not happy about it, but thought I should run it by yous guys.

Noticed a couple of weeks ago the volume would randomly pop up on the screen and level would be jittering between bars. As of Friday, the knob has a mind of its own. I turn it up, and it flicks around, sometimes goes up, sometimes goes down, tried turing fast, slow. Even tried my dad‘s tried and true trick of “holding my mouth just right.” It’s still marginally controllable, but it does it every time I turn the knob.

I assume there’s no simple fix for this, or is there?

Will the dealer have to change out the whole infotainment unit?
Here come the squeaks and rattles!

 

[5amp5on]

Dealer. Swap. A very simple job I would hope there would not be complimentary noises included!

 

[RadzShadow]

Does the issue show up when using the steering wheel control too? I rarely touch the controls on the infortainment directly.

 

[MapleZ]

Mine occasionally decides to go to max volume when I turn it up a little.

 

[bpeckham]

Does the issue show up when using the steering wheel control too?

+1 to this suggestion. It will isolate the problem to the knob or inside the unit. I guess either way the unit would be replaced.

When I first saw this post, I thought it would be about one of my complaints:

• You're listening to some music and driving along.
• Maybe the music is a bit louder than your mom would recommend.
• You get home and start to pull into the garage.
• At the same moment your parking sensor starts beeping, *you* decode to turn down the music.
• Expected result: you wanted turn down the louder, listening volume.
• Actual result: you really turn down the parking sensor ducked volume.
• The parking sensor stops beeping, and where'd your music go? It's gone!
• Oh well, you're home anyway.

 

[FSUZ33]

Does the issue show up when using the steering wheel control too? I rarely touch the controls on the infortainment directly.

Never used the wheel controls, but I’ll try it.
Also don’t know/use keyboard shortcuts and go for the mouse or touchpad every time. Gotta be some psychology behind why I’m like that, idk.
My gut says it’s the knob component itself or a bad solder joint on the knob, and the wheel controls will work. We’ll see.
Thanks!

 

[FSUZ33]

Mine occasionally decides to go to max volume when I turn it up a little.

Mine hasn’t done that yet, but it’s pretty jumpy, mostly in the down direction vs up (using the knob).

 

[Zplz]

I'm not near my Z at the moment so I can't take a look at the knob control but I had an erratic control issue with the volume knob of a Toyota Avalon. What had apparently occurred was just enough of a very small amount of corrosion had happened, thanks to the typical high humidity in my area. I was able to spray some DeoxIT in back of the knob and that fixed it, never to reoccur. I love that stuff and it's worked for me for a number of electrical issues over the years.

I don't know if the knob on the Z can easily be removed or if there's enough room in back of the knob to spray some contact cleaner but you might take a look. The DeoxIT won't damage anything, such as the surrounding plastic. It's not the cheapest stuff, but a can lasts forever and I always have some on hand.

 

[FSUZ33]

Steering wheel controls are nice and smooth.
Next checkup at the dealer is @ 10K (I think I'm around 8,500). I'll have them check it out.

They use some type of electronics cleaner spray back in QA/testing. I'll see what that is.

 

[MapleZ]

Yea mine is the knob I should have specified. Initially thought it might be a software gremlin.

 

[chadgigachad]

Try restarting the infotainment computer. Press and hold the volume button for about 15 sec.

 

[Metacomof9]

With the unit off, spin the volume knob a lot in both directions. Sometimes that can get the conductive part of the knob/potentiometer to snug up better and stop it from jittering.

 

[FSUZ33]

With the unit off, spin the volume knob a lot in both directions. Sometimes that can get the conductive part of the knob/potentiometer to snug up better and stop it from jittering.

This actually helped. It's still jittery, but at least when I turn it up it generally goes up and vise-versa. Before I didn't know what it was going to to do, as it trended down regardless of which direction I turned. I hope it doesn't work well enough now that Nissan won't fix it, but Great Advice, Thanks!

@chadgigachad ... Did this, but no dice. It's definitely something physical or electronic within the knob assy itself.

 

[takemorepills]

The volume knob is not a potentiometer, it's an encoder. Pretty common to go bad on many brands of vehicles. The symptoms are exactly as posted here. Basically there's two circuits in the encoder knob, one that makes pulses relative to the turning of the knob, and another circuit that determines the direction. These pulses are ready by the MCU in the head unit and the volume is adjusted electronically.

Any slight error in the output of the encoder can cause wild volume changes, and even cause the volume to change opposite of your knob turning.

Depending on the construction of the head unit, spraying contact cleaner or DeOxit behind the knob may not help. The design of the hardware may be resistant to liquid intrusion.