Quick question.. Hope someone has some insight on this. Recently picked up an Alpine HU from a fellow s2ki owner. I chose them because it was quick (down the street from me), had the DCI V2 installed already, harness, and, well, it was affordable.
Popped cover, 4 bolts off, pull HU, plug power, snap harness in, put side plates on, slide in, and boom.. good to go.

Of course, this isn't in my car..it's in my wife's car ( '00 AP1).
Tells me yesterday that the cd player doesn't work... She pulls into the driveway, I grab keys, go to car, and um... yeah... it works fine.

Today, we go to a meet.. on the way home, she texts me (I was in my car ahead of her) and says, same problem.

Pull into driveway, I get in her car, and, well, sure enough, everything is on, no mute, no interrupt, everything looks fine.. no sound though.

Turn car off, pull key out, wait 5 seconds, turn key back in, and there is sound.. no issues.


What am I missing here? Loose connection somewhere (but nothing moved from when I turned car off and back on) ? I'm lost... Ground?


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

 

Sounds like a loose connections with the speaker wires. Take the radio out, and check that the speaker wires are all connected. On the top of your alpine unit, you will see a sticker, that will tell you which wire is what.

 

how come when i turn it off and turn it back on it works fine though?

i thought maybe it was a ground or something, but i guess that wouldn't make sense ... it shouldn't cut just the speakers off..


i'll check the speaker wires today

 

If you don't find a loose connection or a wire that is grounding out. You should call Alpine tech support and ask them. Bunch of great guys there.
However it does sound like a loose connection... Do you have an amp? Did you solder the connections or just crimp them?

 

Actually, I didn't do either...I just plugged it in and just put it back in.. I should have checked the wires again..

Off curiousity, where do you usually ground the HU? I saw someone had used the middle bolt on the bracket so I did the same. Not sure if that's the best place though.


Btw.. it's an CDA-9851 HU so it's not new..

 

Well your turning it off in the driveway and then not driving again right away. You should try and force the problem to occur... like proving the issue happens over bumps or sharp turns left or right... sounds dumb I know but it can help you look in the right spots.

I would check those wiring connections... could just be something stupid like a loose wire which might be loose enough to work some of the time but if it gets jarred one way or the other and requires you to turn the HU off then back on to reset it.

I would try and make it happen then while your driving a long push and hold the power button on the HU to power it off and turn it back on again while moving and see if it resets again. If it does I would bet it a bad connection somewhere. If it turns out to be a bad connection I would pull it apart and solder and heat shink the connections to prevent this from happening again.

 

I had a loose ground once on my amp... I thought my brother tightened it down he thought I did it... and neither of had done it so it was just sitting there loose... I was able to fix that on the side of the road because it was right in the trunk but you have to pull the hu out so it might be harder to do it on the fly like that but it does prove something as stupid as a loose connection can cause it to act like that.

If the HU see's the power turn on and off like that it will go into a protection mode to prevent damage to the HU... which sounds like what yours is doing. Alpine amps do the same thing.

 

Sounds like I'll be pulling the HU out again tonight...

Thanks for the good info.. Hopefully it all works out....

 

NP