RA1 to RA2 Upgrade: New Radio No sound or Bluetooth

[Jeff Loven]

Good morning to all. I have a 2014 Ram 5500 that I purchased last year. I decided to upgrade the radio for the stock RA1 to a new RA2 (manufacture date 2/2019) in order to have a backup camera. Long story short, I added the RA2 and a backup camera, got a code from a local dealer, did the programming via the ODB2 port (added the camera option), and presto, everything worked just like I wanted. This was done last summer. In the fall I noticed that after starting the truck, the RA2 radio played music for about a minute, then the sound went away as well as bluetooth connectivity. Everything else on the radio works, the backup camera, changing stations, menus.... just no sound or bluetooth. Turned the truck off, opened the door, started it back up and the radio worked perfectly for over an hour. Since then, this has repeated several times. I started it up yesterday, radio sound went out. Turned the truck off, opened the door, and it worked the rest of the day. Any ideas what causes this random issue? Thanks

 

[Ricks Ram]

I've had this happen on three different occasions with trucks that I upgraded from the RA1 to the RA2 for friends. The volume would show it was going up and down but there was no sound. It was intermittent. For one guy we found another RA2 and installed it and it did the same thing. I ended up finding a nice RA3 8.4 for $200 and installed that instead and it works great. I had him get the conversion harness from M2mods who is in the vendor section of the forum and found the 8.4 bezel and heater control module used on ebay. The RA3 we bought happened to have the Nav activated so it was a pretty big upgrade from the RA2. I'm not sure what ended up happening with the other ones. The RA2 radios are kinda known for having issues like this. I pretty much tried everything I could think of the get them to work right by disconnecting the battery, pulling the in line fuse ect and nothing seemed to help. I try to steer guys away from the RA2 and recommend the RA3 or RA4 instead. You can buy an RA4 for around $200 more than an RA2 if you shop around and it's a much better radio. You can also reset it and find firmware to update it much easier. You would need the 8.4 bezel, heater control module and harness from M2mods so I understand some might not want to upgrade that far. I upgraded from the RA2 to the RA4 years ago and it's one of my favorite mods.

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[Jeff Loven]

Thanks for the quick reply. How much would this conversion cost? Keep in mind this is in a 5500 chassis with a dump bed. I just use the truck for farm work and to carry some hay. 5000 miles per year.... Point is I didn't want to sink a lot into an elaborate radio system that I rarely use. I just needed a backup display and the RA2 was a nice solution, or so I thought....