Dab

[Darran M]

Hi people, I am hoping some one can help me, we took delivery of our lexus ct200h yesterday and absolutely love it, its a fantastic car but we do have one problem...... how do you tune in and store DAB radio stations? we have a list of about 6 random channels that we have never heard of but we don't seem to have things like radio 2 or any local radio stations! using the manual I have figured out how to re-tune it but it still goes back to the same stations that we had before!

many thanks

Darran

[PaulWhitt20]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Glad you love the Lexus. I don't have any experience of dab radio. Don't even have one in the house so sorry can't help you tune it, but looking at similar threads on here it seems as though it is a common problem.

Can you pop back to the dealer to see if they can help. When I picked mine up the dealer spent a lot of time with me setting my phone up etc. I am sure they can help.

My ct has the normal analogue radio but I don't tend to listen to the radio anyway. Prefer my own music selection. When is the analogue radio signal being switched off?

Hope someone else can chip in and help.

[Darran M]

Our dealer is over an hour away so it would be a last resort. Everything else in the car is easy to set up and we had no trouble, we have plenty of stations on FM radio but it just seems silly that it has a DAB feature that is difficult to use! fingers crossed some one can shine some light over this problem. Thank you for your reply Paul

[PaulWhitt20]

Just a daft thought. Could you drive to somewhere the dab signal is strong. Eg near the transmitter and retune there?

[Darran M]

Not a bad idea, I will give that a go. We have a DAB in the house that picks up about 20 channels but I guess that's because it's stationary all the time! Other than this problem we love the car, my wife did a 180 mile round trip to her head office yesterday, 95% motor way driving and it was doing 53mpg, not bad considering that the car has not been broken in yet

[PaulWhitt20]

I'm currently getting about 57 mpg after 8000 miles. Mostly on a roads or round town. If you have not had a hybrid before it takes a bit of getting used to. My best was 67 mpg on a tank in the summer. It's better in warmer weather Battery works better. Mine is the old model.

[Darran M]

That's really good, my wife is a bit of a petrol head and very heavy footed but we thought it was about time we got a sensible car! Our diesel bmw used to get about 50mpg so if it matches or does better than that then it's all good

[KDS]

Am sat in 2014 ct premier and pressing "stations" on the dab page automatically brings up 26 stations pressing presets brought up 5 - I think it's automatic unless you go to manual but does depend on location - currently on Dover sea front

Sent from my Iphone using Lexus OC

[PaulWhitt20]

There you go then. Take the Mrs to France shopping, get some booze for Christmas, and stop off on the way back in Dover to tune the radio!

[Darran M]

Sounds like a plan! I had another go yesterday and got loads of stations, was in a different location, guess I was just in a bad signal area

[KDS]

Certainly dab is very patchy - we bought a dab for our flat and we can't pick up one station it! At least the ct is mobile !!

Sent from my Iphone using Lexus OC

[Rich2508]

Not sure what has changed from 2013 to 2014 model year, but this us how it works on a 2013.

If you get your DAB screen up- the one where you say you have about 6 random stations on.

Then you should have two keys to press Ch+. And Ch- If you click on these, it moves through other available stations in Grouos. Eg you will find one Ch section with BBC main stations, another local independents etc. when you have found the stations you want you can select eg BBC radio 2 then there is a button to store or favourites - can't quite remember but it was obvious.

[adnewton]

I have 2011 model - is installation of DAB worth the outlay??

[Darran M]

Personally I don't think its worth it, we find it really hit and miss

[adnewton]

Think I will just listen to talksport on AM...........

[PaulWhitt20]

The analogue signal is not due to be switched off for a few years yet (2020?). So I would keep a radio that works. Until dab radios are more reliable and can get a decent signal I don't see the point in getting one. By which time we will all be listening to the radio via the Internet anyway.

[Rich2508]

I haven't found any issues with reception until I went on holiday to Yorkshire Dales and finding anything other than main BBC was a bit patchy. Not sure that I can really notice any difference in sound quality though. The Lexus unit is better at reception though than the Sony unit fitted in our New C-Max. If it was an option, don't think I would pay for it unless I was keeping my car after the analogue system goes off.

[masha666]

Hi there

I've the CT200h 2014 FSport facelift model and have finally worked out how to find the remaining DAB stations (other than the BBC DAB Presets)

After researching and googling, people have been talking about the DAB station being in "Groups" - on my model its called "Ensemble". This was the key to finding the stations.

When you have the BBC DAB stations on the screen push the main round knob thing to right and look for stations (not presets, cause they are the BBC DAB ones)

You're looking for the DAB station menu and either "next Ensemble" or "Prev Ensemble". Here Click and push that round knob again to the right and then view stations

Keep repeating this and it then toggles thru different regions

I live in Birmingham so when I toggled thru the "Ensembles", it showed Wolverhampton and Birmingham and South East and Gloucester and SE Wales etc etc

Its really frustating that Lexus have made it all so difficult - hope this helps

PS - Obvs if the DAB signal is poor you wont get anything

PPS - and I did find Planet Rock, Kerrang and TalkSport which made my day :-)

[Darran M]

Thanks masha, I did what you suggested and it worked to a certain degree, we have rubbish signal around our area and that's why it doesn't seem to work very well, will just carry on with FM for now, hopefully the signal will improve before FM gets turned off!

[Scoops]

Living where I do, I have no issues with reception at all, the choice is great. My problem is the way Lexus have implemented it... Any DAB radio (non-car), scans all available channels and then gives you a list of stations. In the car you have to scan each multiplex (or channel). That is understandable as you will be travelling between different channels but it is a pain in the *****. Also, why doesn't the radio allow you access to the radio text?

Having said that, where the DAB station has a FM alternative, it will switch between them automatically to maintain the tunes - nice!