SchwarzeEwigkt Posted July 23, 2023 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Hey! My 2013 Legacy 3.6R has recently started having issues where there's no audio from the speakers at all, intermittently. Usually, I'll fire the car up after not having driven it for a while and everything will be fine. I'll have sweet tunage (usually via BlueTooth to my phone) the whole trip and think nothing of it. Then, I'll get back in the car after doing whatever thing I was going to do at my destination, fire it up, and realize there's no audio. Initially, I thought it botched the connection to the head unit or something — despite that it was reporting on the screen the correct audio metadata and position in the song — and tried switching to another source. It wouldn't play anything from the radio either. The first time it did it, I turned the car off and started it again to "reboot" the radio. It seemed to fix it that time. Today, it happened again. It worked fine on my drive from home to the bank and then to the barber. When I finished getting my hair cut (about two hours later...Bob was busy today!), I got no audio again. I tried turning the radio on and off a few times, though I'm not sure that's "off" so much as muted and the screen blank. Whacked the top of the dash in case it was a loose connection or something. No dice. When I got home, I turned the car off and on again a few times to "reboot" it like I had before. This time, it didn't come back. My wife came over and asked why I looked puzzled. I told her the radio might have packed up, as it wasn't playing any audio. She mentioned that she had trouble getting sound from her phone (via the "iPod" input over a cable plugged into the USB port in the center console box, as pairing to this head unit suuuuuucks) when she borrowed my car the other day. I went about the rest of my day and now, say five or six hours later, I just went out to the car, turned it to accessory, and the radio works fine again. I don't get it. I did some googling and got nowhere. The head unit gets power, so it's not that fuse. I didn't check the amp fuse yet, but fuses tend to be all or nothing, so I think that's a wild goose chase. This evening when it was working again, I even reached under the seat, tapped on the amp, and wiggled the cables around in case it was a bad connection. It just kept playing fine. My first guess was that it was temperature related, as it was pretty warm today (maybe got up to 82), but it was probably much hotter parked in the sun in a parking lot while I was out. Thing is, the first day it happened, it wasn't as hot out and it rained quite a bit while I was out and about. I suck at car audio stuff. I'm more a mechanical/engine guy. I'm leaning toward the amp being the problem since the head unit appears to be running fine. My vacation pics don't give me much to go on. I guess there's a diagnostic mode for the radio. I'll have to try that out next time it acts stupid. What do you fine folks think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubaboo Posted July 23, 2023 Share Posted July 23, 2023 (edited) Dont have HK on my Legacy, but in most of the other cars I have similar problems (intermitent operation, loss of one or more channels), it's the amp itself. If I ran into this problem I'd be looking at the amp first. EDIT: thinking about it, it could be a remote turn on problem which would be a head unit problem. But personally all the times I had to go through similar it was the amp. Edited July 23, 2023 by Scubaboo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted July 24, 2023 Author Share Posted July 24, 2023 On 7/23/2023 at 12:01 AM, Scubaboo said: Dont have HK on my Legacy, but in most of the other cars I have similar problems (intermitent operation, loss of one or more channels), it's the amp itself. If I ran into this problem I'd be looking at the amp first. EDIT: thinking about it, it could be a remote turn on problem which would be a head unit problem. But personally all the times I had to go through similar it was the amp. I guess I’ll want to check the remote turn on line if I have an opportunity to. I haven’t been able to figure out which pin it is, though. These wiring diagrams aren’t easy to read… I think I ran across a diagram on Crutchfield in or about the instructions for wiring up an aftermarket head unit, though. I think all the wires and their functions were labeled so you could get get everything adapted properly. I’ll bet that wire is clearly labeled in there. I should probably just pull the amp out and have a look at it too. There’s a nonzero chance my kid spilled something down there… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubaboo Posted July 24, 2023 Share Posted July 24, 2023 I was curious about the HK system so looked around a bit and found this, it may help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted July 25, 2023 Author Share Posted July 25, 2023 1 hour ago, Scubaboo said: I was curious about the HK system so looked around a bit and found this, it may help. It might! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubaboo Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 No prob, good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted August 26, 2023 Author Share Posted August 26, 2023 Update: Life got in the way of fixing this. Wife's car needed a whole new set of brakes and tires before a vacation, so I had to put those in, and then my car's alternator failed. It's been a rough few weeks. Plus, my car's up for inspection soon, so I've gotta get the important things taken care of. I was hoping the alternator was offending the amp. I did get audio when I started and ran the car for the first time after putting in the alternator, but not tonight when I took the car on a 25mi test drive to make sure the alternator was working properly and to (hopefully) get all the readiness monitors in the ECU set so I'll pass emissions inspection. I didn't take the amp out since it's dark out, but I did roll the seat all way forward when I got home and shined a flashlight under there. There's a bunch of crap on the carpet next to it and three of the mounting screws are rusty. I suspect my mother-in-law spilled something down there before I bought the car from her and it just now succumbed to it. There's precedent; I still haven't gotten all the sticky chai residue out of the steering wheel buttons and the climate control panel buttons from something she spilled all over the dashboard. I swear, some people shouldn't be allowed in cars. Either well, rust hardware doesn't bode well. I might pull the amp out tomorrow if the weather holds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubaboo Posted August 26, 2023 Share Posted August 26, 2023 Well, that does not bode well. My go-to amp install spot is under a front seat and I recently had an amp in one of my cars die on me when a dessicant tub dehumidifier on the floor tipped over and spilled water on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted March 4 Author Share Posted March 4 I realize that it's been nearly a year about this. Clearly, I blew off replacing the amplifier until now. Seems like every time I got it in my head that I was going to pull it out and deal with it, something else went wrong. This car has been a steady stream of moderate annoyance in the last two or three years. Besides, I don't drive it much, so the radio not making any noise isn't really that big a deal. Anyway, I had a quick break at work and the weather is really nice out right now, so I pulled the amp from under the seat. I've got a parasitic draw now that keeps draining my battery that seems to correspond with my having tried to use the radio on the off chance that the amp will initialize and I can drive with tunage. The amp is misbehaving, so it seems a likely culprit. Worth a try. I can't see much into the amp itself, but I can see a couple spots where some sort of liquid contacted the outer casing and spots where it's rusted. There's also what looks like a dried up chai tea drink on the carpet next to and somewhat under where the amp was, so I'm thinking the poor thing is probably toast. I plan to take it apart and take some pictures later today. I ordered a used one off ebay that should show up in a few days. I'll post more updates as I go. Probably. Not that my track record indicates that'll be true... 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted March 5 Author Share Posted March 5 I took the amp apart while I was waiting for the grill to heat up. Interestingly, while there are some corroded spots on the galvanized cover plate by the connectors, there’s nothing on the board itself. There’s no telltale shit stains or obviously blown up components, either. Other than some dead bugs on the board, it looks perfectly fine. In fact, it looks like they dipped the whole thing in resin or something after they fabricated the board, so one would think it’d have at least a little bit of water resistance anyway. I guess I’ll see what happens when the eBay amp shows up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubaboo Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 Huh. Well, hope it isnt anything complicated and the ebay amp solves it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimothy_14 Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 Good luck with the amp replacement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted March 12 Author Share Posted March 12 Couple updates. First, I ran without the old amp in the car for a few days and my parasitic drain issue seems to have at least improved. My theory right now is that the old amp would sometimes not initialize when the radio commanded it to power on and have some kind of seizure. I'm pretty sure the amp gets its main power supply from a line not switched by the ignition (the wiring diagrams seem to indicate that there's a battery powered feed to the amp) and, when stuck in whatever loop mine is stuck, just draws a small but meaningful amount of current until the whole car goes into sleep mode after several hours or whatever later. I think that explains why the amp seemed to work sometimes if I tried to use it after the car sat like overnight after it not working. Second, given that today was the first nice weather since the replacement eBay amp arrived, I put it in just now. It seems to be working; I get audio and was able to turn it on and off a few times. That is, I ran it on accessory and turned it off a few times, each times getting audio. I don't have time right now to go for a typical "cycle" — where I drive to someplace at least ten minutes away, park the car, do a thing, then come back say 20min later to start the car and find the audio doesn't work — so I'm not entirely sure. We'll see over the next few days. Suffice it to say, the eBay replacement amp is looking like the solution. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 I went for a couple of “cycles” today. First trip was about 20min, followed by about ten minutes of sitting off; then a roughly ten minute trip and about 40min of sitting off; then another ten minute trip followed by half an hour of sitting with it on accessory and playing sound and then ten minutes being off; finally 20min back home. It worked the whole time. I think it’s good! 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchwarzeEwigkt Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 I get sound if I want it every time I drive the car now, so I'm ready to call this one solved. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now