Ok so I have Sony headunit, upon starting up my car and driving away the radio just shut off and has not came back on. I had this happen before on another car and I know this should be a easy fix but I’m just trying to remember how I did it.

I should start with the radio fuse under the dash correct? What number is it? And I believe last time I replaced it I used a back up fuse to replace it but I don’t remember where I pulled it from

 

In a 96 hatch stereo is fuse 28. With aftermarket hope the installer used the same circuit. Also check the ground wire. Good luck! I have little faith in aftermarket installs cuz of shoddy wiring people do.

 

15A Fuse 23 for EG.

 

The thing is it was working fine for a year, and it just stopped. Clock works fine

 

You should now conclude that the dash radio fuse is fine.

 

Crappy connection somewhere that finally came loose...wires routed across something that cut them...ground point that corroded... Pull the radio out and try to trace wires. Usually yellow is power, blue with a white stripe is remote on, black is ground.

 

The 15A that was in there was blown. Threw a spare 15A in and it blew as soon as I turned the key. Put a 20A and it turned on and works good, what’s the deal?

 

Fire risk

 

What? I don’t understand lol

 

Fuses have specific amperage ratings for an important reason - to protect the circuit and to prevent fires. Simply put, installing a fuse with an amperage rating higher than indicated by the manufacturer is dangerous.

 

So why did the new 15A fuse blow when I put it in

 

Are you familiar with the term "short to ground"?

 

No I’ve never touched wiring before honestly. The stereo was installed by previous owner

 

^Not particularly relevant information with regard to diagnosis

 

So am I ok with the 20a fuse atleast

 

 

Well i don’t know where to go from here, you could tell me where the ground wire is that’s shorting? Is it the wire going to the head unit? And what do I do when I find it

Learn me

 

When I turn on the car the radio dies

 

Behind the radio, carefully inspect the radio power wire protected by the radio dash fuse. Look for damage or sloppy past repairs. Repair damage or run a new wire.

 

Finally looked at it and the illumination/dash light wire is not in the butt connectors, the wire is cut at the top a bit.

Is this my problem? How do I repair the wire? Just throw another connector on it?

 

Bump

 

Well whenever I make a thread and my problem gets fixed I like to update the thread with how it happened.

It was the headunit I threw in my old one and all is well again.

I blame the illumination wire? And the deck was from 2009

 

The illumination wire is not needed on alot of the newer vehicle because the harness for the radio is connected to the dash harness, which in turn is linked to the dash illumination switch by the drivers side air vent. I have 2 alpine radio's that don't have the illumination attached. These are old school radios too (ALPINE CDA-9887)

Check the back of the radio for a small fuse and see if thats blown or even present. With radios its actually pretty easy cause it is a simple setup. Just remember that its an old vehicle and these harnesses are starting to show their wear and tear.

 

And as for fixing a broken wire, you either run fresh wire from point A to point B or you crimp and tape up the break in the original wire making sure it can't touch and short anywhere else or to another wire.

 

Yeah actually the illumination wire looked like it got cut in half and the wire side was exposed with no tape or anything which I think that could’ve been the culprit. But the deck was always weird it was programmed backwards so the buttons never went to the actual function

I ended up using the old radio harness which was mint. And all is good, I’m just glad to have some tunes again, so now it’s time to fit one of those nice apple car play double din in the sol!