Symptoms: digital display on radio displays nothing, or garbled text. Can't tell which radio station is playing. None of preset radio station buttons work. Volume adjustment on steering wheel works but not on radio itself. If you turn the stereo or radio off you can't turn it back on. So, when it's working, I leave the power switch on permanently and leave it that way. When it's on the blink I wait until cooler weather sets in or I just turn on the A/C, then system begins to work normally.

If playing CD's (tray holds up to 6), none of buttons won't work so can't eject CD. I am afraid to put CD's in any more.

Problem will occur in warm, humid weather and goes away in colder, drier weather.

I've asked the dealer and he said since it's not under warranty anymore, cost would be related to replacing entire stereo system, costing over $5000, so the problem is not worth fixing. It looks like some kind of common electrical contact problem on the front controls.

For some reason, Toyota decided to install a stereo in my new RAV4 that has a known issue where the display will randomly shut off while still playing music. Sometimes strange characters appear on the display. I took the vehicle in the first time and was told they "checked all the connections and everything was fine." It happened again the next day and I looked it up on the internet and found a recall back in January of that year. I took it back in and told them to replace it according to the recall. My beef is that they didn't do this the first time! Very frustrating as its far to the dealership.