How's it going guys, ive been experiencing this weird situation for the last 3 days in my 2007 ap2 with 75,000 miles.

The car randomly cuts of the radio upon deceleration or acceleration at low speeds, and once the radio cuts off my cluster lights flicker and the vsa and ebrake light come one as well. It all happens in a split second and i cant really make it happen purposely.

So far ive done:

New battery (old one was on its way out anyways)
New alternator (tested it at autozone and it showed it was failing)
Sanded down the ground to the negative battery terminal because it was on the firewall
Checked radio fuse
Topped off my brake fluid in case that was what was triggering the vsa lights.

Any idea what it could be?

Im thinking maybe the ground to the radio? its aftermarket and was installed by the previous owner. Though it hasnt given me problems since ive owned the car (10 months)

The car rides perfectly fine, doesn't lose power while driving or anything.

Any advice would be a big help

Edit****
Quick video of the car at a stop, had the headlights, ac and dome lights on while hitting the window switch. But the result is the same as what I described while driving except this time the radio didn't momentarily cut off.

 

Maybe a connector has loosen or gotten water into it. Try contact cleaner on the connector pins. Are the positive and negative terminal connections on the battery tight?


Good luck!
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You're saying the connector behind the cluster and radio?

ill give that a try and see, but yes the battery terminals are cleaned and tight

 

Uploaded a video which you can hopefully see.

Cleaned all the grounds on the front driver side and passanger side of the at. Checked my brake fluid level again and my battery terminals.

Everything checks out fine, could it be I got a alternator with a bad rectifier?

That's all I've been able to come up with after days of searching, pretty annoying to deal with especially having dropped the money on the new alternator and having returned the core

 

Check the battery's voltage with car off and on. You should see at least, 12.6VDC with engine off. And at least 13 VDC with engine on & most electrical equipment on. If you see this, your battery and alternator are prolly ok.

The symptoms don't seem to match battery or alternator issues. But, maybe connections to the battery and alternator. It sounds like a loose connection, somewhere. I'd go through connections under the dash, by the fuse box, fuses in the box, wiring under the hood related to the dash functions. Pull connections, clean them with good contact cleaner. Work the cleaner into the contacts by inserting and removing the connections a few times.

Clean all grounding contacts. Retighten. Hope all this works. BTW... I like Caig Deoxit GN-5 (or now distributed by Hosa, same product). Just use a little.


http://www.amazon.com/DeoxITGOLD-GN5...rds=deoxit+gn5



How to check battery-alternator:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGB6ZEjGm7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGB6ZEjGm7Q

 

I would recheck the wires n installation of the aftermarket radio to rule it out.

 

If you're having cluster issues, I believe you have an overall power/ground feed issue somewhere. Has your motor been out recently or have you had any head work? How are the engine ground points going to the subframe? What about the ground bundle right next to the ECU and by the hood latch?

 

Thanks for the replies guys, gonna try pulling and cleaning all connections and taking apart the aftermarket radio and see where it leads me.

Whats weird is, ive been trying different scenarios to see if i can manipulate the car to do it and it seems it only does it when i ride with the headlights OFF. At night the car does not do it, weird right? has me stumped!

Here is a pic of my grounds by the fenders that i cleaned last night and scraped the paint as well:








And a pic of the test results by advanced auto parts of my battery and alternator:



Could someone tell me where the grounds from the motor to the subframe are? ive searched but havent come across it.
The car has never been disassembled just a stock ap2 but maybe the ground could of got damaged somewhere?

thanks again

 

Just drove the car back from work and just as I expected , vsa light (!) light abs light and ebrake light came up atleast 20 times on and off along with the radio cutting off when I rode with the headlights off.
Turn the headlights on and it MAYBE did it once throughout the same amount of miles driven.

Haven't been able to take the radio out because of it getting dark so fast, hopefully can tackle that on Saturday

 

I wonder if since it seems to be related to your headlights (which in turn turn on the illumination circuit), and the radio uses the illumination wire that its something related to that. That would seem to make sense if there is a fault or bad wiring with the radio illumination wire.