A common problem I have read about with C7 Corvette, especially the 2014, is a flickering infotainment screen. The wiring to the head unit screen is a terrible design since it is a fragile connection designed for a screen that is supposed to move. Since the screen can be lowered and raised, this puts a lot of tension and movement on the cable, and over time, it will fray and loosen. Why wouldn’t GM do a better job with this since the area behind the screen is DESIGNED to be used as a storage compartment?
Usually, your screen will look like the below, be dark, or have white pixels of snow. Mine did all three and could be repeated easily by lowering the screen and then putting it back up. The video below is my screen displaying the symptoms. The system will otherwise work fine playing the radio, media, or music from your paired phone.
You might get a little lucky and a wiggle may buy you some time until you need to replace the cable unless you use the storage compartment regularly. This involves a few minutes and popping two trim pieces off.
You can barely access the cables by pulling off some trim to get to them. If you can reach it with your finger or a tool, you can wiggle them and hope for the best. This worked for a day. lol
You must order a cable from Amazon, linked here, to start this process. This will replace the blue cable that GM uses. Alternatively, you can use the cable next to it with the white/gray connector if your car doesn’t have the Performance Data Recorder option. The cable will be there, but unused. It is simply a matter of unplugging the cable on the left and then moving the other cable to occupy that slot.
The center dash must be stripped down, but watch the video below for tips. This is a necessary part of the process since there is no other way to get the screen out of the car. The video below is the best one I have found.
Once you have the screen’s innards revealed, you will probably see a sad-looking cable from being bent and pulled with screen travel. Mine didn’t have the blue cables. It had two cables going into one connector for the infotainment and the same for the PDR, which I don’t have. It made me question whether the cable I had purchased would work since my existing cables were so different. I didn’t want to wait and leave the car in pieces while I research my options, so I put everything back in place in under an hour.
5/16/2024
I discovered that some 2014 models had black cables exactly like mine and later years had blue. It was confirmed that the Amazon cable was a direct replacement. I discovered that you can take a pair of needlenose pliers and push the left cable up into the radio to reseat it. That stopped mine from flickering, but I decided to pull the radio completely out to do it the right way and not have to worry about it. The second dismantle went a lot faster since I now had experience. The screen is fine now.
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