First 1k service soon, can't wait to drive it hard and fast!Extremely happy with the car, handles and drives really well. I came from a Merc E320 w210 and I am really surprise that Suzuki has done so much ground work on the Kizashi. To be honest, in terms of power, its obvious that Kizashi is no match to the E320 but it is smoother and handles way better. In terms of technology, the 12 years old E320 is actually slightly more equipped than the Kizashi but I am still very satisfied. Here comes my only complain / concern, the Kizashi audio...
Here in Australia, the factory Sat Nav option is an Eclipse AVN827GA to go with the factory RF amp and 10 speakers. To my disappointment, the sound is really weak with serious lacking of mid bass and the subwoofer is almost like non existent. I have read many posts on this forum and it seems like our U.S. counterpart with the Kenwood option is sufferring the same syndrome.
I have been in touched with RF and below is their advice:
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The customer should ensure some key settings on his headunit are compatible with our amp:
- If using speaker level outputs, ensure they are full-range. Defeat any HPF on those channels.
- If using line-level outputs, ensure they are full-range. Defeat any HPF on those channels. Likely would need to turn OFF any subwoofer settings.
- Ensure the headunit outputs are around 4-5 Vrms ---- higher levels will overdrive the amp. Lower levels won’t allow the amp to make full power.
- The factory headunit has an automatic loudness feature --- this may require customer to turn up BASS control on aftermarket headunit to compensate.
Some background information:
- The factory amp is set-up to accept 4-5 Vrms differential full-range inputs. If his headunit’s line-level outputs are low, you can suggest a BLD.
- The factory amp’s internal crossovers send low frequency signals to the subwoofer. His headunit should NOT send low-frequency signals to other outputs (because of the headunit’s internal crossover).
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Wasted no time, I forwarded this info to Eclipse but it has been a week without any reply!
To all of you audio guru out there, is there anything that can be done without spending big $$? My disappointment is purely due to Suzuki using the RF sound system as a marketing gimmick but offer an aftermarket sat nav unit as option which they possibly know that it will compromise the factory amp and sound quality...
From here onwards, I just need a place to vent my rant
:I went to a pretty well known audio place (start with T) on Sir Donald Bradman Rd to get some advice. The chick was pretty helpful and offered to have their tech to check out my Eclipse unit to ensure it is all hooked up correctly and options available for upgrade.
I asked if I can follow to see what they are actually doing but the answer was NO. I must be the stupidest person to still let them take the car to their workshop. After 10 minutes or so, the tech came back and no surprise, they wanted me to spend some money which is understandable. However, despite numerous time of me stressing that I am very fussy and do not like any broken clips or missing screws, the tech still managed to F#$! it up.
First thing that I did after reaching home was to start taking things apart to see if they have done any damage. Well, the idiot tech dropped a screw (took me hours to find it) and replaced it with something different.
Anyway, after hours of searching, I gave up and went to an auto shop to get a flexible magnetic pick up tool. This tool is GOLD! It totally worked! To those who have dropped screws in hard to reach place, highly recommended to get this.
I am just so sick of those so called expert not treating customer cars with respect. I had some horrible experience with my Merc too.
I got some pictures below, enjoy! Btw, can I bypass the handbrake safety feature just by grounding the blue wire? I would prefer the Eclipse unit to continue playing video so my wife can watch as a passenger and able to make call to someone using BT without stopping completely and pulling the handbrake.
Thanks for reading!