A year or two ago, my car radio started cutting out occasionally. At that time, the problem was relatively minor; after a few minutes of failing to produce sound, the sound would come back for the rest of the day or so.
I went by a place that sells and installs car radios and asked them if they could easily check to see what’s wrong. They said they’d charge $125 just to take a look–and the actual repair (or replacement) would of course cost even more.
Forget that, I said to myself, and just lived with a less-than-perfect car radio operation.
I didn’t simply replace the radio because I did not know whether the problem was in the radio, the connection between radio and car, or the car’s wiring.
Lately, however, the problem has grown much worse. And the following is true:
If the radio goes out, then I can get it to come back by hitting the dashboard or hitting the roof of the car. I can also get it to come back by slamming the door–but the sound comes back before the door makes contact with the body. It comes on during the swing, in other words.
The problem is not specific to particular speakers–all the sound cuts out from every speaker.
Lately, it has acquired a lot of popping even when the sound is working.
Since all speakers go out at once, and since I can hit the car pretty much anywhere on the inside of the body to make it work again for a while, I take it the problem is either in the radio itself or very close to its point of contact with the car’s sound wiring. (Very odd that hitting the roof works, though. And strange, also, that the sound cuts back in during the swing when I slam the door.)
But how can I figure out for sure where the problem is short of putting a whole new radio in, and if it’s the car’s own sound wiring, how much is that probably going to cost to fix?
Also, btw, I think the symptos are weather-related. It seems like the problem almost completely disappears when it rains!