Used ACE radio problems

FirstGene

Advanced Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2024
Messages
60
Location
Grand Junction
Hello, we just bought a 2017 Thor ACE 27.2. We have had two trailers, an Airstream and a Nash, but we agreed as we age a small Class A would work better for us. My wife doesn't like backing a trailer, but has no problem towing. The hitch gets heavier every year, so we agreed a change was necessary.

We found an ACE with 32,500 miles and in quite good condition. The tires were awful, so we put new ones one and made sure everything was greased properly, so that took care of the vibration in the steering wheel. There are some blemishes, mostly on the outside—there usual decal issues, a broken headlight lens. Inside the wood is in good condition, but needs some scratch repair. The leatherette is except for one place, looking very good.

But—no surprise—neither radio works right. The previous owner must have thrown all the manuals away, but I have been printing them out, one by one. The one for the dashboard radio is as bad as the radio. It only works for radio and rear camera, but cannot get anything else to work. The four front speakers work on the radio, but not TV's.

How do I get the speakers to work for the TV's? The DVD player doesn't take a DVD. I tried the reset, didn't help. If it worked right, would DVD's play here for all TV"s? Is there a replacement that fits in this space and is not this garbage brand (something like Axxella)? The bedroom radio is a Jensen and all it does is tell the wrong time—no buttons work. Is this a replacement radio?

I am not surprised the radios don't work. The Nash IRV radio was garbage too—two failed and other replacement didn't work at all. I can wire in a DVD player through the connections for the Dish receiver and probably that would work, but would like to have functioning radios and speakers.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Hello & welcome.

We have a 2915 ACE 30.1. The TVs do not play through the radio speakers. Are you sure yours are supposed to?

Which radio do you have? Our's came with a Jenson. It works but I suspect it is fairly low end radio. I'm planning to replace it with a Kenwood.

The dash radio's speakers were up in the ceiling - well behind the 'cab' area. With the slide closed it blocked the left speaker. And all this made it very difficult to listen to the radio while traveling. I added two speakers to the dash (there's plenty of room) and re-wired the connections so the dash speakers are "front" and the ceiling speakers are "rear".
 

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Thanks for the info. I am pretty sure the dash radio is original because elsewhere on this forum there are lots of complaints about it.

Our dashboard radio plays through two speakers under the dash and two over the sofa. No idea about TV's, but the radio has a number of options that seem like they may be for TV does have a DVD slot.

Your passenger seat area looks just like ours and the driver's area locks the same, but the radios are different I think. Glad to see your dog does the driving so you can take a nap.
 
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Jenson

If it's a Jenson radiio save it in case you buy a boat. You can use it as an extra anchor. Kenwood and Pioneer make good replacements.
 
Back when I was reading Rolling Stone and in grad school (1960's) Jensen was a good brand, but no more it seems. The bedroom one is a Jensen and the dash one is an Axxera (maybe I have that right). I think the dash one will be harder to replace because the size is small (the buttons are very small and the screen is hard to read—the passenger has to do most of it). I hope others here have replaced these with better radios and they fit. Wiring will be a challenge.

I still am unsure what radio does what with the TV's and how to get speakers working with TV's.
 
In my Hurricane, the bedroom radio has two inputs. One is radio, one is the external TV. The exterior TV will play thru the radio and power the external speakers. The rest of the speakers are only powered by the dash radio.
 
Thanks for the info. I am pretty sure the dash radio is original because elsewhere on this forum there are lots of complaints about it.

Our dashboard radio plays through two speakers under the dash and two over the sofa. No idea about TV's, but the radio has a number of options that seem like they may be for TV does have a DVD slot.

Your passenger seat area looks just like ours and the driver's area locks the same, but the radios are different I think. Glad to see your dog does the driving so you can take a nap.



The TVs are not connected to either radio in your RV; in that TV sound will not play on radio speakers and the dash DVD will not play on a TV.

There may be an HDMI cable in a cabinet for a DVD player to play on the living area TV.
 
The TVs are not connected to either radio in your RV; in that TV sound will not play on radio speakers and the dash DVD will not play on a TV.

There may be an HDMI cable in a cabinet for a DVD player to play on the living area TV.

There is an HDMI cable and a splitter for three TV's and the Dish receiver is plugged into the input side. I haven't set up the Dish receiver yet.

The bedroom radio has two selections much like Lt. Keefer says.

Although I am accustomed to Thor's quality issues, I did not expect the MH internal speakers to be separate from the TV's. If the dashboard radio only sends signals to some of the speakers, I'm sure some owners have figured out how to solve the issue. With a radio, TV and speakers in the bedroom it is hard for me to understand how the speakers only work for the dash radio. But I have to check this out. I never heard of the TV brands either, but I know they are pretty cheap.

I kept trying to replace the radio in the trailer—#2 was installed a few months after we bought it, but parts of it failed over the next few years—first the DVD player, then the speakers. I ordered a comparable model, also from iRV, it didn't work, and then another, which also didn't work. That's 4 radios that failed or never worked. I don't want to use the same radios to replace the original ones because they are low quality, but also don't want to rewire everything, but the latter may be the best idea. And if the speakers never worked for the TV's, then I have another problem. I'm not really excited about rewiring a MH.

The cheap TV's have low quality sound and having that over the dinette makes its hard to listen to.

It is all perplexing and maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but sanitizing the MH in upper 90's temps is not my idea of a good day. We found the A/C takes a long time to cool the MH, but it has been sitting in the heat for days and has stored a lot of heat over that time.
 
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There is an HDMI cable and a splitter for three TV's and the Dish receiver is plugged into the input side. I haven't set up the Dish receiver yet.

The bedroom radio has two selections much like Lt. Keefer says.

Although I am accustomed to Thor's quality issues, I did not expect the MH internal speakers to be separate from the TV's. If the dashboard radio only sends signals to some of the speakers, I'm sure some owners have figured out how to solve the issue. With a radio, TV and speakers in the bedroom it is hard for me to understand how the speakers only work for the dash radio. But I have to check this out. I never heard of the TV brands either, but I know they are pretty cheap.

I kept trying to replace the radio in the trailer—#2 was installed a few months after we bought it, but parts of it failed over the next few years—first the DVD player, then the speakers. I ordered a comparable model, also from iRV, it didn't work, and then another, which also didn't work. That's 4 radios that failed or never worked. I don't want to use the same radios to replace the original ones because they are low quality, but also don't want to rewire everything, but the latter may be the best idea. And if the speakers never worked for the TV's, then I have another problem. I'm not really excited about rewiring a MH.

The cheap TV's have low quality sound and having that over the dinette makes its hard to listen to.

It is all perplexing and maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but sanitizing the MH in upper 90's temps is not my idea of a good day. We found the A/C takes a long time to cool the MH, but it has been sitting in the heat for days and has stored a lot of heat over that time.

Amazon TV now $119 was $200
 
There is an HDMI cable and a splitter for three TV's and the Dish receiver is plugged into the input side. I haven't set up the Dish receiver yet.

The bedroom radio has two selections much like Lt. Keefer says.

Although I am accustomed to Thor's quality issues, I did not expect the MH internal speakers to be separate from the TV's. If the dashboard radio only sends signals to some of the speakers, I'm sure some owners have figured out how to solve the issue. With a radio, TV and speakers in the bedroom it is hard for me to understand how the speakers only work for the dash radio. But I have to check this out. I never heard of the TV brands either, but I know they are pretty cheap.

I kept trying to replace the radio in the trailer—#2 was installed a few months after we bought it, but parts of it failed over the next few years—first the DVD player, then the speakers. I ordered a comparable model, also from iRV, it didn't work, and then another, which also didn't work. That's 4 radios that failed or never worked. I don't want to use the same radios to replace the original ones because they are low quality, but also don't want to rewire everything, but the latter may be the best idea. And if the speakers never worked for the TV's, then I have another problem. I'm not really excited about rewiring a MH.

The cheap TV's have low quality sound and having that over the dinette makes its hard to listen to.

It is all perplexing and maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but sanitizing the MH in upper 90's temps is not my idea of a good day. We found the A/C takes a long time to cool the MH, but it has been sitting in the heat for days and has stored a lot of heat over that time.

Many people have added a sound bar to their living area TV. We did that but put a bluetooth transmitter on the TV and paired it to the bluetooth soundbar mounted over our recliners. Easier to hear the TV over the A/C.

You can do the same thing with your living area TV and pair it to the dash radio to play through the speakers.
 
I have looked at soundbars—don't need much for this application and it seems to be a reasonable solution, especially since my wife agreed. Best Buy has a number of them for $100. Being old (I wonder where the vacuum tubes went?) I have to figure out if this cheap TV has a bluetooth output. The picture is good, but the speakers are not.
 
I have looked at soundbars—don't need much for this application and it seems to be a reasonable solution, especially since my wife agreed. Best Buy has a number of them for $100. Being old (I wonder where the vacuum tubes went?) I have to figure out if this cheap TV has a bluetooth output. The picture is good, but the speakers are not.

It doesn't. Very few TVs do. That's why you get a Bluetooth transmitter and connect it to the TV. This is what I use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3MH1ZTB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
 
I ordered the Bluetooth unit 16ACE27 suggested—had a coupon so it was pretty cheap. Then I ordered a Samsung basic soundbar—left, right and woofer in it is good for space limits. I can screw it to the cabinet over the sofa and plug it in to the receptacle under the cabinet. The bluetooth unit seems to have no cord for power and may run on the small amount of electricity from speakers, but if not, I can use the receptacle under the dinette. Receptacles in RV’s seem to be in strange places, but there are 5 in the main cabin even if not quite where I want them.

Moving on, next I will sanitize the water system. I’ve done that many, many times with trailers. I hope the fresh water tank drains quickly. The Nash trailer had a knife valve under the water tank and it drained in about 5 minutes. The Airstream had a really small plastic valve that took forever to drain and I replaced with a hose bib, but still took too long. After that, check out the bedroom radio. Much easier to remove. And get the satellite dish activated. And pack it and, and, and……

So, thanks guys for the information.
 
I have the 27.2 as well. The outside TV is connected to the bedroom radio as "line in" and will play on the outside speakers.

The main tv is suppose to be connected to the dash radio but Thor did not do it and would not remedy through warranty. You can run rca audio out from the tv to the dash radio. I added a sound bar with the subwoofer under the rear dinette seat as there is an outlet on that side that can be tapped into.

I will be adding different rear speakers as the ones over the couch are useless when driving.
 
Thanks for the info crazy legs. I am not too concerned with the exterior speakers because at a campground few people want to hear my TV. I realized that I could isolate the speaker wires at the radio for the speakers over the sofa and attach to a bluetooth device, but it doesn't seem to be worth it. I am unsure whether the exterior speakers only play what is on the radio or on the exterior TV—I haven't tested it as I was content for just figuring out how to make the radio work.

I found a discounted simple, basic Samsung soundbar from Best Buy that has an internet woofer and is good enough for the main cabin. It has to be better than the crappy speakers on the Reiki TV. I also ordered a bluetooth transmitter from Amazon—yet to attach it. I will either leave the soundbar on the back of the sofa or on the ledge over the passenger seating with a simple carpenter's clamp so it isn't accidentally knocked over. It can live on the sofa seat while traveling. I could also put the soundbar on the dinette table, but that's too close when sitting there. I did look into attaching the soundbar to the bottom of the overhead cabinet over the sofa, but the brackets for that were not included with the soundbar and it looked like a poor place for it. The holes for the brackets would not be a sturdy place for screws and might break the plastic and fall down. There also the frame of the slide over the dinette to attach it, but too many wires dangling. There are even more solutions if I were willing to do some basic carpentry and build a secure box to put the soundbar in under the cabinet, but I'm not into doing that much these days. There is a receptacle under the cabinet over the sofa to power the soundbar. Then hardest part of this is plugging in the sound and power cables for the bluetooth transmitter behind the TV which has little room to fit my hands behind it, but I'll figure it out.
 
Thanks for the info crazy legs. I am not too concerned with the exterior speakers because at a campground few people want to hear my TV. I realized that I could isolate the speaker wires at the radio for the speakers over the sofa and attach to a bluetooth device, but it doesn't seem to be worth it. I am unsure whether the exterior speakers only play what is on the radio or on the exterior TV—I haven't tested it as I was content for just figuring out how to make the radio work.

I found a discounted simple, basic Samsung soundbar from Best Buy that has an internet woofer and is good enough for the main cabin. It has to be better than the crappy speakers on the Reiki TV. I also ordered a bluetooth transmitter from Amazon—yet to attach it. I will either leave the soundbar on the back of the sofa or on the ledge over the passenger seating with a simple carpenter's clamp so it isn't accidentally knocked over. It can live on the sofa seat while traveling. I could also put the soundbar on the dinette table, but that's too close when sitting there. I did look into attaching the soundbar to the bottom of the overhead cabinet over the sofa, but the brackets for that were not included with the soundbar and it looked like a poor place for it. The holes for the brackets would not be a sturdy place for screws and might break the plastic and fall down. There also the frame of the slide over the dinette to attach it, but too many wires dangling. There are even more solutions if I were willing to do some basic carpentry and build a secure box to put the soundbar in under the cabinet, but I'm not into doing that much these days. There is a receptacle under the cabinet over the sofa to power the soundbar. Then hardest part of this is plugging in the sound and power cables for the bluetooth transmitter behind the TV which has little room to fit my hands behind it, but I'll figure it out.

Reiki TV? You sure it isn't a Seiki TV? That's what Thor used.
 
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