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Do-It-Yourself set

Well, it didn’t work for me after initial setup. Honda CRV is the worst possible cars for this remote to work: the radio has some deep housing around, plus it’s on top, plus there is transmission’s column-mounted selector lever covering the radio from the left. It worked only in total darkness, 2 o’clock mounted.
Here comes the fix.
It’s infrared, so I stared looking for a LED, which is supposed to transmit the signal. Take any home TV remote and see how it works. You’ll find some clear plastic, covering a LED, or LED with no cover coming out to send a signal. Basically, it’s an invisible light, nothing more.
I was surprised and shocked to find no LED visible anywhere on Pioneer CD-SR100. Since it didn’t work for me and I’m too lazy to ship it back, I’ve decided to open the unit to see what’s inside. It wasn’t really hard, actually. You start from the bottom, where Pioneer logo is, carefully using a small flat screwdriver, and quickly have the unit in two peaces. This is when you’ll see the LEDs, two of them, hidden inside right behind that Pioneer logo. There is a tiny hole of a hair size which, according to minds of Pioneer engineers, is big enough for the signal to come out. I don’t want to use any other words here, but I totally disagree with Pioneer on their idea.
To continue, you have to remove the volume control board. It’s attached with 4 small screws. After that, I took a drill, a 1/8 drill bit and just drilled a hole near that LED, which was closest to my head unit on 2 o’clock position. That’s it. I even trimmed the volume board with scissors to open up the LED even more and pushed its head to the new hole. You can assemble the unit back after that.
And now it WORKS! It works at 2 o’clock, at 6, at 10, at darkness, at sun - it just works. Once again, don’t want to comment Pioneer’s engineers. People, finalizing the design of this unit should be fired. Actually, the soldering of the board was so-so, it’s on very cheap side, has 4-5 parts on the board, and for the money the unit is too overpriced.
You’re loosing you warranty after doing what I did, I bet, but for me the only way before was just to throw the unit away, so I don’t care.
Thanks.

Update (2/9/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Pioneer Cdsr100 Steering Wheel Remote Control Electronics, was written by User.

The average rating for this item is 3.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.