I put some new seat foam in the driver's seat of my 07 1500 Ram Quad (SLT with the 6-way power seat) and, like I was supposed to do, I removed the negative battery cable before removing the seat from the truck... However, after my re-install I attached the battery and now the CD player will not work or even be recognized by the head unit.

The radio is the 6-CD changer with MP-3 and satellite radio...but when I hit the "mode" button (which typically shifts between the CD player and Satellite) the radio does not even show that there is a CD player. Occasionally I hear the CD player attempting to cycle the CDs but that is all.... The CDs will not eject or play....nothing. I have had the battery disconnected before but no problem....any ideas?

 

Maybe a power spike when it was reconnected? I read that removing the ignition off draw fuse will reduce or maybe eliminate the risk of causing any damage to electrical components. When you pull the fuse I believe you lose the settings in the radio.

 

Thanks, Is there any remedy other than replacing the head unit??

I knew that I would lose any saved data, like clock settings, but if disconnecting the negative battery cable causes the head unit to blow out then the shop manual and maybe the Threads on the forums should warn us about it....I only disconnected the battery because of the warnings concerning air bag deployment... Maybe there were warnings that I simply missed...

This 07 Ram is the newest truck I have owned and my older trucks obviously were not sensitive to such things...So...maybe some warning should be posted as a "Sticky" that give warning about this problem....or maybe there is one that I missed? Like you mention I have since read that power spikes can cause problems but I did not read that until I did searches seeking information about the CD player not working....warnings too late....

Thanks for the help...I love that black Laramie....wish I had your seats!!!

 

Any breakthrough ideas on fixing this radio problem?? Or am I forced to replace the unit? I tried removing the fuse but there was no effect. Thanks for any advice!!

 

Interesting. My 6-disc changer head unit stopped working somehow when the truck sat for a few months while I was gone a few years ago. I put a cheap Sony head unit in it, and last year I disconnected the negative to do some work -- now I don't get any sound signal out of it on any channel or input. It WORKS, it gets signal from cd or device, but it doesn't come out the speakers. I and others have tried everything short of taking it out of the dash to see what's up with it. I hate the Sony, anyway. I'll eventually get something else put into it.

 

I guess you learn from mistakes. The Shop Manuals and the various DIY threads all tell you to disconnect the battery before doing various maintenance and repairs, but none tell you to take steps to save your electronics??? I know one thing, it is unlikely that I will disconnect the battery again to do simple work on this truck! I cannot afford a new radio every time!

The consensus seems to be that disconnecting and then reconnecting the battery for any reason can, and often does, kill the radio due to a voltage spike or simply the loss of data in the various computer chips. This same thing happened to my wife's 2003 VW when the battery was disconnected to replace a window regulator, but I thought at the time that the dead radio was a coincidence.

This week I bought one of those "computer settings keepers" that you plug into the cigarette lighter when you remove the battery...it keeps a small voltage in the system to keep the computers alive and all of the radio and clock settings from dying. I had noticed the guy at the battery store use one when I bought a new battery, but did not realize what it was doing. I have read that using it can save your settings and maybe the radio....but I do not see how since it is a voltage spike that supposedly kills the radio....Maybe someone else can shed more light. This 07 Ram is the newest vehicle that I own...my last was a 2000 Explorer and other than losing the clock settings disconnecting the battery never did any damage to anything. I read that most cars since 2003 can suffer such damage....it seems that the manufacturer would design and install a backup battery to avoid such problems, similar to the one in my desktop computer.

I can purchase a replacement OEM radio like the one that I had for about $150, but I cannot decide if I want another OEM radio....I was never impressed with this Dodge system anyway. Anyway, thanks for all of the help and advice!