Car Radio Speaker Problem

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mister_pond

Member
:
2003 Protege 5
I recently replaced the Double DIN stock radio with a single DIN radio. I used all the required adapters, soldered the adapter harness to the replacement radio plug and all went well. Until it just crapped out. With no explanation, the speakers are silent. There's full power to the deck (both stock and replacement) and all its components but no sound permeates my speakers. I've checked the plug on both the stock and replacement deck and all the teeth seem to be fine. All solder points are fine and no scorch marks on the heat wrap are present. Every fuse somehow wired to my system (one in the adapter harness and one in the main console) are fine.

Are there any fuses or other solder points that could have been damaged in the process of switching out a radio that I'm not aware of? I can't place the problem. Any tips would be awesome!
 
no thats kinda weird.. so u saying u tried both decks and neither give u any sound? are u running any amps to the speakers? or was all u did is swap decks? if u are not running an amp and u just swapped decks try putting the old one back in and if u still have no sound i would pull a door panel off pull the speaker and test with another speaker. if by chance u do not have another speaker to test with then take an ohm meter and put it on the speaker terminals (red/pos Black/Neg) set it to ohms turn on the radio and u should see it fluctuate if it does then the speaker is shot cuz ur getting power but no sound.. give that a try
 
whatusername said:
take an ohm meter and put it on the speaker terminals (red/pos Black/Neg) set it to ohms turn on the radio and u should see it fluctuate if it does then the speaker is shot cuz ur getting power but no sound.. give that a try
Click to expand...

Generally speaking it's a pretty big no-no to put an ohmeter to a live circuit. Ohmeter's use there own battery power to feed into an inactive circuit to get a reading and you can blow a fuse in the meter or wreck it entirely if you plug it into a live circuit. (although newer digital meters are better designed to deal with that)

You should set the meter to volts when the power is on,... you'll still get the fluctuating reading but you won't damage your meter or possibly even a circuit you're testing.
 
pcb said:
Generally speaking it's a pretty big no-no to put an ohmeter to a live circuit. Ohmeter's use there own battery power to feed into an inactive circuit to get a reading and you can blow a fuse in the meter or wreck it entirely if you plug it into a live circuit. (although newer digital meters are better designed to deal with that)

You should set the meter to volts when the power is on,... you'll still get the fluctuating reading but you won't damage your meter or possibly even a circuit you're testing.
Click to expand...

This is good to know, thanks to both of you. All I did was switch the decks. I have an extremely bad track record of things breaking on me regardless of how well I do my job (even if it's a professional doing the job) so I prefer to leave things like a vehicle bone stock. The deck was just an update. I did try the stock deck as well with nothing. I unwrapped the wire casing for all the radio electrical and saw no scorching whatsoever. It feels like I'm taking crazy pills!
 
It could very well be that the deck is bad. Try reinstalling the original deck and see what happens.
 
pcb said:
Generally speaking it's a pretty big no-no to put an ohmeter to a live circuit. Ohmeter's use there own battery power to feed into an inactive circuit to get a reading and you can blow a fuse in the meter or wreck it entirely if you plug it into a live circuit. (although newer digital meters are better designed to deal with that)

You should set the meter to volts when the power is on,... you'll still get the fluctuating reading but you won't damage your meter or possibly even a circuit you're testing.
Click to expand...
ur right pcb i meant set it to volts not ohms my mistake... i know this cuz i just did it tio my car the other day when i was getting no sound out of my amp it turns out i blew 1 of the voice coils on my sub and the other sub was never connected in the box by the po lol
 
bigpturgeon said:
It could very well be that the deck is bad. Try reinstalling the original deck and see what happens.
Click to expand...

Original post says I did. Same with another reply. I would hope that I'd have the common sense to at least try the original deck.

Edit: I just went out to my car to take another look. There's buzzing in the speakers when my car is on yet no sound with either deck. My initial thought was it must be a wire from the harness to the speaker, but don't they go through the same relay? I don't really know what goes into the guts of car audio, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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^Whatusername said is right but if you don't want to pull the door panel off,... you can test the speakers at the big DIN plug that goes into the back of the radio being as you've already got it out).
Disconnect the big plug and with all power off. Check the resistance for each speaker with their corresponding 2 wires. It should read 4 ohms (I think,.. that's what most car speakers are but it could read 6 or 8 ohms) It shouldn't read less than 1 ohm,... that would be a shorted voice coil,.. and it shouldn't read really high or "OL" (open line) that's a broken voice coil.
Most amps will shut down automatically for a short circuit to protect the amp, so that could be why you have no sound. One shorted speaker can shut off the entire amp for all four speakers (or 6 if you've got those tweeters on the pillar),... that includes the stock amp.

You can also check for voltage (set your meter to AC volts) at the back of the radio with the big connector unplugged. Be careful not to short out the pins with the probes (that wouldn't be good for either stereo).

I found the wiring diagram to help you out.

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wirecolorcodes_zpsaecc6263.jpg
 
I was getting that post together and missed your post about the buzzing sound.
Normally when the amp kicks out there is nothing going to the speakers,... it sounds like it's idling as if the volume is turned all the way down. (the speakers usually kick out with a relay which is similar to turning the speaker button off on a home stereo when you are using headphones,... there is usually nothing at all coming out of the speakers,... but with that being said, the car stereo could operate a bit different.)
Either way starting with an Ohm reading on each pair of speaker wires is the best place to start. With the power off and using the ohmeter, you really can't screw anything up.
If you have the pillar mounted tweeters, they are connected in parallel with the other fronts so the ohm reading will be less,... maybe as low as 2 ohms but 1 ohm or less is wrong.
The fact that everything was working and then died all of a sudden is weird unless you put more power to the speakers with the new stereo and after a bit you melted your voice coil and shorted out one or more speakers.
 
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@ Mister_Pond please let us know the outcome so others who may have the same issue now or in the future can read this thread and find the answers they need
 
I was thinking about it some more and realized that if you unplug the connector to test for voltage on the speaker pins, you won't get anything because the big plug also feeds the power into the stereo (duh) so that won't work.

You might want to check for that buzz on all four (or six) speakers to help check for a dead one. You might not be able to hear it on the pillar tweeters (if you have them) because they have low frequency filters on them which might block the sound.
 
The factory audio system has a built in test function with trouble codes.
You should plug in the factory system and check for codes.

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Adiotest2_zpse87dd4bb.jpg
 
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Is it possible you have an amp somewhere that's supposed to run the door speakers? Someone could have Jerry rigged one in.

Just for a test, go get a little bit of speaker wire and a speaker ( doesn't matter what it's from as long as it works) and hook it up to both head units to see if it works. If it does you may have to run new speaker wire to all of your door speakers
 
ALL the speakers stopped working at the same time. Both head units do not work. The new head unit was working properly and then it 'failed'. (did i summarize correctly?)

1. Check the ground to the radio - it may have worked loose and the only ground is through say, the antenna lead, and not properly.
2. The Power lead is barely making contact.
3. One or more speaker wires is shorted to ground or a speaker is failed internally (shorted).

I do not believe it is a
 
whatusername said:
@ Mister_Pond please let us know the outcome so others who may have the same issue now or in the future can read this thread and find the answers they need
Click to expand...

I always try to: after determining the problem was not with my decks or the harnesses (I replaced the harness [the one you buy in stores] and the harness the radio deck comes with for good measure) I delved into the deep of my car. Okay not that deep. I followed the main bundle of wires in the dash to a point where I did see scorch marks. Apparently, the original owner replaced the wire there and made a bad solder joint. Luckily I didn't have to do anything more than replace it. I do appreciate the diagrams and input everyone has supplied anyway! So if all else fails, take a look at all your wiring before taking your car apart. If there's tape covering something, take it off and double check.

I'm sure starting a new post would be ideal but while there is one: has any experienced any significant drops in their P5's acceleration and what caused it? I bought mine second hand and it was a great peppy car. I could easily red line on the highway (not that I tried to). One day, any of that power was gone. I could floor it on the high way at 100 km/h and nothing will happen. Anything in 3rd and 4th gear has this issue.
 
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Vic's solenoid. Even if you don't have a cel on get it scanned. If you get p0660 its Vic's solnoid
 
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