So I have a Jensen VM9214 in my truck running to some Alpine 6 1/2's. I live out in the country and go over many potholes and bumps on the road every day.

Today I went over a rather small but sharp bump and all my music cut out at once. I turned the truck off and restarted it, nothing. The sound that comes from the deck - not the speakers when you push a button on the touch screen doesn't even make a sound. After driving another 5 miles, it started to work again, but then after making a turn it stopped working again. I think it's a ground... but then again, the display still works.

I took out my deck and checked all the connections behind the deck - all are snug and perfect.



Any help?

 

Stock or infinity setup? How old is your unit? It might just be to the point where after so many bumps something broke and is shorting out.

 

It's a Jensen VM9214 running to a stock system, but with Alpine 6 1/2's in it. Worked perfect for a few months then this..

 

If its a few months old turn it in for warranty. You can try unplugging it for a few hours it might reset everything. If not customer service should be able to help. If you get a new one and still doesnt work then one of the wires are shorting out somewhere.

 

It's two years old, but I had it in another truck before for a year with no problems. I think I'm just going to call Jensen tomorrow and take it from there. Dodge makes great trucks, but sometimes their wiring is a little iffy.

 

Oh ok gotcha. Really the only way you can test it is if you have another head unit laying around wire a few things up and see if its the wiring or not.

 

Yeah... I shook it, and nothing rattled inside... Guess I will see what Jensen says tomorrow and report back.

 

One way to check it is to remove the deck from the truck and bench test it. A good car audio shop will do that or you can test it yourself. If you don't have a separate 12 volt power supply you could just connect a power and ground wire to your truck's battery, connect those to the deck's power and ground wires and connect a known good working speaker or even a pair of speakers to the deck's speaker outputs. You can stick a length of speaker wire or even a cut-off coat hanger in the antenna receptacle for a temporary antenna or you could just use a CD for the test. If you get sound from the deck with it out of the dash like that, then you will know the deck itself is OK and to check the system in the truck.

Be sure you have a good ground for the deck. If you used the factory radio's ground wire, try connecting about a 14 gauge wire to the ground wire of the deck, run the new ground wire down to one of the kick panels and ground it there under a factory installed bolt or nut. Be sure the ground point is clean, shiny, bare metal. The factory ground wires can become contaminated over time and cause problems with aftermarket decks.

The next thing to do would be to check the speaker wires at the radio location in the dash. Modern decks and amplifiers will shut down if there is a bad speaker or speaker wire that is shorted to ground. This keeps the outputs in the deck from burning up. Use a volt-ohm meter and check each speaker wire for continuity to ground. If you have the factory Infinity amp, unplug it and check its speaker leads for the same continuity to ground. If that all checks out OK, you may have a speaker wire shorted to ground either in one of the doors or the rear speaker locations. You need to remove the speakers and check the wiring there visually. Look for chafed or shorted wiring that looks like it could be in a position to contact metal anytime you hit a good enough bump in the road.

If that all checks out OK, and if you have the factory Infinity amp, it could be that the amp has an internal problem. You would need a stereo electronics repair shop to test and fix that for you, or you could just bypass the amp and use the power in the Jensen deck. You could also have a problem with the remote on wire from the deck, it should be blue/white. Use a voltmeter and check its voltage with the deck turned on. You should have about half an amp of current from the remote wire. Connect the meter to the wire and tap on the case of the deck with a screwdriver handle or shake the deck and see if the voltage on the remote wire drops out. If that happens, just wire the remote on wire for the Infinity amp to switched 12 volts.

These are a few things to check.

Jimmy