Sub amplifier acting up

[lazytiger]

I have an Alpine mono amp that I bought at Circuit City a couple years ago, and I installed it myself in my Vibe a few months ago. It was working just fine for a while, then it started cutting out on me. It randomly turns off and stays off for a long time, and then turns back on for a while, etc. It does not seem affected by bumps in the road. I've looked at the amp while it was cutting out and the amp was actually off, so it's not a problem with the connection to the woofer. The amp was also cold to the touch, so it's not because of overheating. I checked all the wiring (power, ground, turn-on) and couldn't find any pinches or loose connections.My question is directed to Jahntassa, since he works at CC. The amp is still covered by an extended warranty that I bought. It was originally installed by CC in my old car. Does it matter that I took it out and reinstalled it myself in my Vibe? How easy or hard is it to convince them that something is wrong with the amp and they should just give me a new one? The problem is intermittent, so I'm sure it of course wouldn't happen while I was at CC, unless I hung out there for a long time.

[Jahntassa]

If your warranty hasn't run out, they'll do one of two things:It doesn't matter if you installed it yourself.. you got the warranty on the amplifier, it'd be good if you installed it or if they did..1) They'll send it for service. This is generally the first option, but it depends on a few factors. Customer service will tell you for sure. See if you have the reciept. If not, they can look it up.. If you can physically carry the amplifier into the store, that's a little more beneficial.2) They'll return it as defective, and give you a credit toward a new amplifier. Most likely the amp you have has been discontinued, so they'll give you the cost that you paid for that amplifier, and you can put it toward a new amplifier of whatever's in the store, paying the difference if you want to upgrade.As long as your warranty hasn't expired, you'll be good.If it's good, try dealing just with customer service. You know something's wrong with the amplifier, and they should believe you. Your other option is to go directly to the shop, and be like, "Hey, I got this (x) years ago, it's messing up, what do you think?"If you tell them it's intermittent, it's not like they'll tell you you're making it up. If they do...BAD shop! Not every shop is as smart as the other...But..you should be fine!Also: If your warranty has run out, they'll probably offer to send it in to service... it's like $40 to send it in, and goes toward the cost of the repairs.

[lazytiger]

Thanks for your help, Jahntassa. I'm just wondering how they'll determine if something's actually wrong with the amp. Because, for all I know, it is in fact a problem with my installation that I just didn't catch. But the amp is definitely still under warranty. I found my receipt, and to my amazement, the warranty is still good until Nov. of '05!I didn't quite understand whether you suggest I go to the customer service or the shop... I should just go to the customer service if my warranty's still good? I've talked at length with the guys in the shop at the closest CC in the past, but it seems like every few months there's a completely new group of people. Is that normal?

[Jahntassa]

Quote, originally posted by lazytiger »I didn't quite understand whether you suggest I go to the customer service or the shop... I should just go to the customer service if my warranty's still good? I've talked at length with the guys in the shop at the closest CC in the past, but it seems like every few months there's a completely new group of people. Is that normal?Since you have the warranty, you can probably take it up to customer service directly and tell them it's cutting in and out, and you have the warranty. They might bring one of the shop managers up to 'verify' it, but there's not much they can do to verify it. Most likely they'll return that amplifier and give you credit toward a new one.As for the new group of people, i'm sadly not surprised. Many locations have a bunch of seasonal employees, who are only around for a short while, or, they just aren't quite 'on the ball'. Or my reason, their manager is a bit of a d*** and they wanted to get away. Some shops have high turnaround, some don't. I've been at my shop for a year, another guy for two, and another for three, plus one guy we hired back in april.. The thing is, we all know what we're doing, so they're not about to fire us for a new crew..

[lazytiger]

I took it in tonight. They gave no option other than just sending it in for service. I went ahead and did it; nothing to lose except a week or so without my sub.The only other thing I can think of, if it turns out that there's nothing wrong with the amp, is maybe the fuse under the hood is loose. I took the fuse out and it looked like part of the gold plating had been burned or zapped off... is that a sign of a bad connection?

[Jahntassa]

Could be loose, yeah.. usually those things stay as gold as they were the day they went in, since they're waterproof holders 'nall.. But...going in for service, worse they can do is say nothing's wrong with it..

[damronjr]

I have the same problem with my phoenix gold amp. i was actually going to post something on here right now about it and just came across this. i have no idea what it is. i checked the wiring and everything seems fine. i checked the cap and it seems fine. i checked the wiring to the battery and back of stereo and can't find anything wrong. the amp does the same thing, comes on for a while, then cuts off for no apparent reason and comes back on whenever it likes or sometimes when i start messing with it for a while. i still have no clue what is wrong, so hopefully if you find out through CC what is wrong with yours might explain mine too. i don't think i have a warranty on mine anymore anyways.

[Jahntassa]

What're you doing to mess with it? It could be a loose component in the amp..I repaired a Kenwood amplifier where the fuse came loose from the mainboard, and one of the ground traces had developed a crack. After cleaning it up, and repairing some of the soldier joints, it worked like new...

[damronjr]

I checked the wiring making sure everything is tight. Moving things around, checking the ground. Maybe I should open up the amp, but I don't want to screw anything up. i have another amp that i have been meaning to put in there and see if that takes care of the problem, but since it just kind of goes out when it wants it would be pretty hard to tell if that solved the problem or not.

[lazytiger]

Ah... this is my first post since they upgraded the forum software... nice.Anyway, I got my amp back from CC. The note from the tech said "One or more parts/wires were soldered audio circuit". Thanks--that clears it right up. I don't think there was anything wrong with it, at least not that was causing the problem I was having. Just today I went by the place where I bought the amp wiring kit and the guy said that they had a bad batch of fuse holders from Boss a while back, and I might have gotten one of them. He gave me a new holder (not the same model I had before; I think I probably had the wrong one) and a new fuse for free. The fuse fit in the holder WAY tighter than it did previously. I haven't had a chance to see if the cutting out problem is solved, but I bet that's probably what the problem was.Sigh... so now I have a new problem since I got my amp back from CC. Now there's a bunch of line noise that never happened before. My wiring hasn't changed at all. Is it possible that something happened to my amp that's causing that? I just don't understand how my circuit went from good to crappy all of the sudden. I'm thinking about getting a ground loop isolator, but isn't that basically like putting a band-aid on the problem?Also, where have some people grounded their amps in their Vibes? Mine is grounded to a spot underneath the plastic spare tire well. I'll have to post some pictures. Where is the best place to ground your equipment? Back to the negative terminal on the battery? The engine block?

[Jahntassa]

It is possible the CC tech managed to introduce line noise if he soldiered the wrong things. The fact that it says "Audio Circuit" leaves me suspicious of that.If your fuse holder was bad, it's possible if it was wiggling around, that it could've created some bad soldier points in the power circuits of the amp, thereby creating a problem with the amp anyway.. It definitely isn't right, and as annoying as it is, you may want to swing your car by the roadshop and show them exactly what's happening.As for ground, any piece of the chassis will do. Generally you want to strip the paint back at your ground point, if you ground to painted metal, the only contact you're getting is with about 3mm of surface of the screw. You need to get a wirebrush or something to scrape at the paint until it's bare metal, and screw the ring terminal on the ground wire down to that bare metal.Try regrounding first..then see if it's still there. Mine is grounded to the left of the spare tire (if looking in through the back hatch)

[lazytiger]

It sounds like I have my grounding point in pretty much the same spot you do. It's under the spare pull-out, off to the left. I scraped the paint off with the end of my wrench; it worked pretty well. I've already checked the wiring again and everything looks good. Nothing has changed other than the new fuse and holder and the amp coming back from CC. It's a pretty serious noise problem; it hums along with the engine when it's on and still makes noise even when the engine is off. It pops when I turn the volume down to zero (but not up from zero, interestingly). I will take it back to CC and have the shop look at it.I could kick myself for ever taking the amp back to CC when I just needed a new fuse holder.

[Jahntassa]

Well, as I said..it could've hurt something on the inside of the amp. But..if CC messed up the amp...they better comp you for it..