GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Back in the winter I was driving on a rare decent day, had the radio on, and it glitched out -- thought it was the station at first, but slowly realized the radio had lost everything off the bottom.

2003 with M&T, looks like replacement radio's are relatively affordable, though I suppose it could be a problem with the amp under the seat? Any ideas on troubleshooting this? Also, what's with the unlocked radio descriptions I see on eBay? Do the radios really need unlock codes from dealers?

Thanks all!

[so, playing with the EQ, l/r or f/b, car on/off, none of that has changed the dilemma. Heck, is there a fuse on one of the two devices that could take out just part of the sound?]

I don't know too much about car audio but it sounds like your head isn't eq'ing properly. Or perhaps you lost a sub?

Without testing equipment it is hard to say which item failed, the signal from the head unit, or the low end section on the amp. The amp has a filter section that routes low signal to the sub off the rear speaker channel. Since you already tried the L/R F/R and EQ reduces the chance of a bad amp. To test this you could make a test lead using the headphone audio from an MP3 player to inject signal into one of the amp channel inputs. The Car radio will need to be on, to keep the amp on, but the radio volume can be set to 0 The amp is on full volume all the time, it is only he input signal that cause the output volume to change. if the audio is tonally correct the problem is in the head unit. Their is a wiring pinout for the amp attached to this post: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=40421

From the dead, this thread revives...

Going to look into this more this spring. My further troubleshooting consisted of "erm, the fuses all seem fine, oh I need to look under seats AND WHAT ARE YOU KIDS DOING" and work on the house last year.

Derf, thanks (um, 10 months later ) for the info, going to see what the amp in ours looks like - 03's had no sub in the M&T package. But it would still isolate a problem between either the radio or amp.

Could it be that the speaker is blown? Do you have a volt meter? Check the wires going to the speaker in the back and see if they're getting power. Might not be a bad time to upgrade your head unit too. They're a big improvement sound-wise for not a lot of dough. And having HD radio and the ability to plug in whatever MP3 device you have or stream music from your phone is well worth it.

Wiring diagrams...
https://www.google.com/search?q=genVIBE ... xHpcpXM%3A



Also if you really want bass check out my thread.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=44984

2003 M+T doesn't have a sub.