About 2 weeks ago I turned on the truck and the stereo BLASTED at full volume even though it was not turned up. I turned it off and back on everything was working fine. A week later my truck had trouble starting, turn the key and click nothin. Give it a second and turn again (sometimes a couple tries) and it would start. Had a free replacement on the battery and swapped it out, everything was working fine. Today I got in turned the key and "click", same thing started happening again.
I don't have a multimeter at the moment (it disappeared with some of my other stuff ). Anyway I yanked the fuse for the stereo (factory unit) and it is starting up much easier now. Am I right in guessing the stereo is the culprit here?
Oh yeah this is on the 95 Ram 1500.
First step: Buy Kenwood stereo from breast buy for $100.00
Second step: Install Kenwood stereo
Third step: Play all the Digital Underground you got in you collection... uhrutROWWWRRrutrowwruhrutROWWWR
In reply to rebelgtp:
Stock stereo, or aftermarket? I've seen a lot of this kind of thing when aftermarket stereos are installed. There's one lead to "unswitched" power, to keep the head unit's memory (clock, radio presets, what track on the disc that's loaded, etc.) on, and one to "switched" power (so that the unit only runs when the ignition is on).
I know that mixing the two can lead to a drain because I actually hook up both leads on my units to the "unswitched" (so that I can play the radio at campsites, car shows, etc. without the key on) source.
Weird thing is, doing that never caused me much of a problem on old school cassette decks, but I've drained a battery or two doing this on a CD player. Evidently, they require a little more juice than the older units. I escape the voltage drain by making sure I remove the faceplate every time I'm not using the thing-and by running my non daily drivers twice a week instead of just once, to recharge the battery a little more (idling for 20-25min, I figure it takes that long to get the engine warm anyway).
EDIT: Be careful when removing the fuse for the stereo..there's a lot of cars out there that run the dash lights or tail lights or something else through the same circuit.
EDIT 2: I just realized you said it was the factory unit. Ignore everything I said...
Yeah its a factory unit that has had weird issues since I got the truck, 5 years ago.
Had it sitting for several hours and it started right back up with that fuse pulled. I have not seen anything else running on that same circuit. Everything else on the dash works and lights have their own circuit.
Went and picked up a new deck and adapter kit for the truck. Took going to three places before I found the adapters, guy included it and the proper harness adapter with the new deck.
