The radio itself is probably fine, but something is going haywire concerning how it connects to the speakers.
Sound only comes out of any of the speakers (front or back) when:
The A/C fan is all the way up, and
All four of the windows are all the way up.
(They are mechanical, not electric windows).
Moreover, when even when the above conditions are satisfied, it will still cut out randomly–and randomly come back on. When it cuts out randomly, I am able to get it to come back on, at least for a second, by, basically, hitting the car. Anywhere. I used to hit the ceiling (from the inside I should clarify) to get it to come back on, but I later discovered I could hit it anywhere–slamming a door, or hitting one of the car seats really hard are the two most effective ways to do it, but stomping on the floor works as well as does simply rolling over a bump or pothole. Strangely, one place I can’t use to get the thing to come back on is–the dashboard. Where the actual radio is. But that just is further evidecnce that the problem isn’t in the radio but in the body of the car.
But listen, isn’t it strange that all four windows have to be up and the a/c all the way up? Or is that not strange? Maybe it’s not, I have no idea what things look like inside the surfaces of the interior of my car. What do you think?
You have an intermittent open circuit somewhere. If all four speakers are acting this way simultaneously I can’t see any connection with the windows. The A/C fan probably causes enough vibration to close the circuit, as does hitting the car in the appropriate spot.
Does the radio lose power, or just audio? If the former, it could be a fuse. If the latter it is probably located in the wiring harness at the rear of the unit.
I forgot to ask the main question in the OP–given the symptoms do I have a way to know in advance whether I’m looking at a few dozen, a few hundred, or a thousand or more dollars to get the radio system working?
(Assume I’ll be taking it to a shop. I’m in no position to learn myself how to fix this right now…)
It doesn’t lose power, the speakers just stop emitting sounds.
So the window thing is weird, huh? I’ve triple and quadruple checked this. While the sound is otherwise being emitted, if I roll down any single window, even just a crack, the sound cuts right out. Then when I roll it back up again, the sound cuts right back in.
I forgot to mention, even when the sound is working, it is pretty crackly.
I only tried it while the car was in drive but not moving. I’ll give it a try when moving later today. (Will be hard to check the back windows though…)
I can see a possible connection with the windows as crazy as it sounds. They retract into the doors which is probably where some of the speaker wires pass through. I agree that it sounds like you just have a very lose connection somewhere that gets jiggled to work only under certain conditions. It may fail completely at any time. It shouldn’t be complicated to fix but I would start by taking the door panels off to look at the connections which isn’t always easy.
If you want to pay someone to fix it for you, a local car audio shop can probably do it. They have all the right tools and expertise and usually charge about $50 an hour for labor. A smaller job like that usually takes 1 - 2 hours at most. If they don’t want to do it without you buying some of their products, you can buy some of their cheaper speakers and just tell them to install them and get them working. Total cost for that would be about $200 - $350 for 4 speakers including installation. Even cheaper aftermarket speakers are usually better than all but the best factory speakers anyway.
I can’t come up with a plausible explanation for this. The fact that cracking any manually cranked window while the car is stopped makes the speakers work is baffling. And that’s a badly worded sentence but you know what I mean.
If the car was moving then I might consider that a pressure change or airflow change might move the open circuit somewhat and get the speakers to work, but sitting still?
ETA: Crawl under the dash and have a look at the wire harness going into the stereo. Jiggle it. See if you can locate some particular area and narrow it down from there.
Well, sure for door speakers that terminate in the door. I can’t see how you could run wires to the rear speakers through the doors though. They’d kinda get in your way when you opened the door.
I see you are getting at. I have had multiple speaker failures over the years and they always were caused by a faulty lead at the speaker itself. However, if there are truly multiple speaker failures at the same time, that indicates the common point they originate from. That is back of the stereo in the wiring harness in this case. It is easy for those to become loose as well. The fix for that is just look up whatever removal tools you need to take the stereo out of the dashboard for your model of vehicle and stereo. It usually isn’t that difficult and they sell removal kits for about $20 or less at auto parts stores like Autozone. Most stereos these day have standardized connections. You just have to make sure it is plugged in securely. You can also try feeling it from the back first if there is enough access for your hand before your do anything else.
It is definitely just a loose connection somewhere. If all else fails, just take it to an audio shop, buy some new speakers that will sound much better anyway and tell them to get it to work.
I had an old Honda that did something similar with the speakers randomly coming in and out. The radio was crummy anyways, so I ended up replacing it while I was in there, but I believe the problem was the wiring harness starting to wiggle loose.
I worked at an electronics repair shop for a little while, back in my college days. We repaired several (Delco?) stock car radios by reflowing the solder joints on their circuit boards. Over time, heat cycles and vibration can cause the solder to crack, causing intermittent open circuits that get worse over time.
Does the radio cut out with any window opened, or just the driver’s window? If it is just the driver’s window I suspect the wires for the door speaker are being shorted out by the window regulator as it lowers.
You didn’t give a year or model, but the comment that even when working the speakers sound crackly makes me think the car is older, if I am right a wire repair and some new speakers would be not to expensive and a huge improvement.
The radio itself might be a POS, but the problem described sounds speaker related.