Appears I have a short...

[o36]

So I got the car back from the body shop last week, and today I went to redo the stereo system in the car. Well, the head unit won't power up. Checked every fuse in the cabin and under the hood, none are blown. Get out the multimeter and set it for Ohms to check for resistance on the head unit harness.

When I check the 12v switched, there's no change on the multimeter when I have the key switched to ACC/ON but not cranked.
When I check the 12v constant, the display on the multimeter goes off, remove the lead and the display comes back on.

Thought it might be a bad crimp so I pulled the head unit harness and check directly on the car side harness, same results. I'm not sure how to physically trace back the stereo harness, I lose sight of it, and I can't see very well up under the dash.

I need to call the body shop tomorrow, since the radio powered on before I handed them the car. They had to remove the whole front end to inspect in behind before replacing the bumper cover and repaint the passenger side fender.

Are there any wires that could be pinched/cut/melted as a result of taking off and replacing both fenders and the bumper cover?

 

[o36]

Apparently I'm an idiot and needed sleep. Woke up this morning and realized that checking for resistance isn't the test I wanted.

Went downstairs, hopped in the car and set the multimeter to dcv.

12v constant reads 11.4 with the car off, 13.8 at idle and 14.4 under load so all good there.

Checked the 12v switched and nothing.

Took an old harness and head unit I didn't care about and bridged 12v switched to 12v constant and plugged it in, head unit fires right up as expected.

I don't want to leave it this way for obvious reasons, so now I'm hoping the body shop that worked on the car will take it upon themselves to have a shop inspect/investigate and either fix the issue or replace the harness.

The car was in on an insurance claim so there's no extra dime coming out of my pocket except for the deductible I already paid.

If they refuse, or if the insurance company refuses then I'm left hooped, I really don't want to rip out the entire dash as that's a pain in the ass, but I also don't want to pay for a shop to do that either as that would get really expensive.

Fingers crossed, gotta call the body shop back in an hour as the advisor is on a parts run.


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[PinkieT]

Good luck, man!

 

[o36]

Good luck, man!

Thanks man, I spent most of the day running speaker cables through the door boots, from the driver side under the carpet through the console and down the passenger side for when I get the car back so I can complete the stereo install. Removed the rear seat bench so i could get things sorted in there nicely. Bundled up all of the aftermarket cabling and ziptied it under the factory radio. Put the system back to as close to factory as I could before taking it to the bodyshop just to rule anything out, and so the insurance company couldn't call foul, cables are ran but they're not plugged into anything.

The 12v constant functions of the factory head unit work as expected, CD eject, clock but no turn on, so there's definitely a problem with the harness. I just don't want it to be my problem to fix, lol.

 

[ttocs]

when you say you checked all the fuses, did you only check the ones the manual hinted were the ones you needed or did you check every single one? Its not uncommon at all to find that the fuse blown has nothing to do with the problem at hand so when i suspect a fuse I do not bother with the manual and just check every fuse. Takes less time anyway and you can be sure they are all good. Don't forget the box under the hood.

 

[o36]

when you say you checked all the fuses, did you only check the ones the manual hinted were the ones you needed or did you check every single one? Its not uncommon at all to find that the fuse blown has nothing to do with the problem at hand so when i suspect a fuse I do not bother with the manual and just check every fuse. Takes less time anyway and you can be sure they are all good. Don't forget the box under the hood.

Yeah I took my fuse tester and checked every one of the mini fuses on the panel under the dash and for good measure every fuse under the hood had a physical inspection performed.

Every other electrical function of the car is in good working order, it's literally just the 12v switched wire on the radio harness.


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[ttocs]

ok good. I am confused why the old deck/harness worked. Also look on the back of the radio sometimes they like to hide a fuse back there.

 

[o36]

ok good. I am confused why the old deck/harness worked. Also look on the back of the radio sometimes they like to hide a fuse back there.

The old deck and harness worked because i bridged the 12v constant and switched together effectively making the switched always on.

Curiously however I was retesting all functions in the car and the windshield wipers aren't working which if I recall correctly is also on the switched circuit.

As well, the driver side power window "one touch" feature doesn't work. The switch will roll the window down and up, but it has to be held for it to work.

I've verified all brake lights, turn signal indicators and head light functions. Rear defrost works, HVAC controls all work. Trunk release button works, interior dome lights, horn works.

Cruise control has been busted since I had the car. Dash illumination works as well as dimming. Power mirrors are also fine.

Basically anything that relies on constant 12v power works, anything that relies on 12v switched doesn't work.

I'm gonna have to go back and check fuses again. It occurs to me that this might not be a fuse problem, but maybe a relay problem...


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[o36]

So as I suspected with things not adding up, I went back through the fuses with a fine tooth comb and found a blue 15amp fuse that was blown.

Swapped it out and everything's good now. What a cluster**** lol


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[ttocs]

out of curiosity look it up in the manual now and see if it lists anything about the radio.

 

[g36 monkey]

Glad you got it figured out!

 

[o36]

So it's definitely something shorting out, and most likely it's the radio harness that I wired up for my aftermarket deck.

Any time the neg battery terminal is reconnected, and this harness is connected to the car harness, fuse 32 blows (which according to these diagrams is the radio fuse)

Here's a picture of the harness (to be fair, I'm blaming my hack job, there's probably a bad crimp somewhere in this rats nest)

The 4 wire harness spliced into this feeds the Bluetooth module (voice interrupt, 12v switched, 12v constant and ground).

Back to the drawing board.

 

[ttocs]

what did the body shop do?

 

[o36]

what did the body shop do?

I never took it back to the body shop, I found the fault before going there, I'm in the process of rewiring the harness using solder and heat shrink.


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[ttocs]

there is nothing wrong with crimping wires but it looks like your using one of those cheap crimpers that never does all that good of a job. You found the problem or just hoping that soldreing/shrink will fix it? I didn't see any bare copper in it to concern me. Only thing I was worried about was the speaker wires not being insulated on the deck. They could be shorting out to one of the power wires.

 

[o36]

there is nothing wrong with crimping wires but it looks like your using one of those cheap crimpers that never does all that good of a job. You found the problem or just hoping that soldreing/shrink will fix it? I didn't see any bare copper in it to concern me. Only thing I was worried about was the speaker wires not being insulated on the deck. They could be shorting out to one of the power wires.

The crimper does a good enough job, it took me a couple times before I learned how much pressure to apply, at first I was applying too much to the point where the crimp would actually sever the wire.

So when I did this harness I applied moderate pressure, enough to crimp the wire over, then took a pair of flat pliers and flattened the rest of the butt connector over the sheathing just so it grabbed to keep things in the connector.

I actually ran out of time and getting pissed with my interior being ripped apart for weeks on end so I got lucky and was able to schedule an appointment with one of the best audio shops here to finish things up tomorrow.

They're going to redo the harness, mounting my new components and sound deaden both doors as well as tuning the system. I'll be doing the floors and head liner deadening myself this summer.


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[ttocs]

these are wire crimpers
http://www.techtoolsupply.com/Produ...VbSZ1Buq1cw9H9D4HniSrzs5krWCIv29QYaAs1u8P8HAQ
this style is almost always crap.
https://www.zoro.com/stanley-wire-s...0GjR1tuZT5xSg8fkGMHD3JQLp1iBpFuVtwaAqpN8P8HAQ

if you want to know if they are doing a good job all you need to do is give a good solid pull/tug on the wires. A properly crimped wire will hold up and the klein style I recomended above do this very well.

 

[o36]

these are wire crimpers
http://www.techtoolsupply.com/Produ...VbSZ1Buq1cw9H9D4HniSrzs5krWCIv29QYaAs1u8P8HAQ
this style is almost always crap.
https://www.zoro.com/stanley-wire-s...0GjR1tuZT5xSg8fkGMHD3JQLp1iBpFuVtwaAqpN8P8HAQ

if you want to know if they are doing a good job all you need to do is give a good solid pull/tug on the wires. A properly crimped wire will hold up and the klein style I recomended above do this very well.

Yeah the crimpers I have are the Klein style


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[evilcw311]

My snap ons are the Klein style. Anything else is trouble waiting to happen.


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[o36]

Turns out it was not in the harness at all, had perfect continuity end to end. Looks like the fuse blows when the bluetooth module is plugged in =/ I was looking to upgrade to a KCE-400BT anyway to pair with my CDA-105 I picked up recently.