Has your Maestro ever just died?

I have a Kenwood DNX996XR with a Maestro RR. I have an SR5 that came with the stock stereo, non-JBL, so I purchased the Kenwood/Maestro setup so I could retain the steering wheel controls and have all of the nice features that the OBD offers. Being that I am not versed or experienced in setting up that kind of system, I had it professionally done by a local shop (after much research). Then two weeks ago, I lost my steering wheel controls. I noticed that the field/widget on the stereo that I have the TPMS sensors set on was blank. Upon further investigation, I found that my gauge feature was also gone. I checked the OBD port, and the interface was plugged in. As I have gained more confidence in doing more and more maintenance and troubleshooting on my beloved Tundra, I decided to at least take a shot at resolving the issue before I had to take it to a shop to fix. (I did the clockspring replacement last year with the assistance of a very well composed write up on this forum). The logical problem was that the Maestro had pooped the bed. So I started looking up articles and troubleshooting guides on the Maestro. I looked up how to remove the stereo and how the Maestro should be connected. I pulled the stereo and the Maestro (after disconnecting the proper terminals on the battery). I downloaded the software from iDatalink and flashed the Maestro, then reconnected the power and tested it. It worked! Everything was back to working great. I do have to reconfigure the TMPS feature and the gauges, but that is not a big deal. (I need to rotate my tires anyway, so the TPMS thing was coming). I was very pleased with myself. Not a big deal for most of you, but I was pleased as that was a new milestone for me in terms of digging into something that I had absolutely no experience with.

My question is, have any of y'all ever had your Maestro just die, then all it needed to be fixed was to be reflashed? Is that a thing with these components? Obviously, it happens since it happened to me, but is that a common or uncommon thing? I was starting to budget for a replacement Maestro in case this fix attempt didn't work. I am pretty happy that fixing it didn't cost me anything. (The time spent is something that I consider an investment in my own growth).

 

Personally, not yet. I’ve read on here that some have. It’s electronic, temperature can do funny things to it. It will get glitches. When you flashed it again, did it update to the latest firmware? Or was it already on the latest when the shop installed it?

 

Mine hasn't died. I did short and blow the radio fuse in the drivers side footwell one time doing some wiring and some of my gauges (trans temp, engine temp, etc.) didn't work after that. Had to go back through the settings menu in my Kenwood and re-validate the PID's. If you lose power to the unit for whatever reason it seems to get confused, but I never did have to re-flash the software.

 

It was originally installed in March 2020, and I assume it had the latest firmware available at that time. (The decal on the unit said that it was built Oct. 2019). I think that I’ve done one firmware update to the Kenwood early in 2021, but I didn’t update the firmware or even check to see if there was an update available for the Maestro. I have not had any problems with either unit until the Maestro stopped working a couple of weeks ago. I did download the latest RR flash software from iDatalink and installed it on my laptop, so whatever is on the Maestro now should be the latest firmware.

 

Mine lost TPMS out of nowhere & the reflash fixed it. Boy was I glad I had the BT version!

 

I wish I had the BT version. Mine randomly decides to not work and the steering wheel controls don't work until I shut the truck off and restart it. I figure a firmware upgrade might solve the issue, but like a dumbass I stuffed the USB cable behind the head unit so I'll have to pull it all back out to get to the cable. I really wish I would have routed it down to the OBD port.

 

And when I programmed it, I somehow got the up/down backwards for radio tuning. So when I push down to change radio stations, it actually goes up. Very annoying but it's been that way for two years now.

 

I hadn’t considered leaving the USB plugged into the Maestro and running the cable somewhere easy to get to (so I wouldn’t have to disassemble half of the dash just to reflash the unit). If/when I have to do this again, I’ll do that.

 

Definitely do that. Now that I think about it, I probably don't have a cable attached to it. Been too long ago after I installed everything.

 

What I’ll do next time is get a 4’ cable, run it through the glovebox, and spool up the excess to store it. That way, I have plenty of slack to connect to my laptop.