Hey all, first time on a forum like this but I need a little help and Google isn't cutting it lol.

I have a 1997 Ram 2500. I bought it off its second owner about 2 years ago. When I bought it, the radio was working fine. However due to other issues, the truck sat for about a year before I started regularly driving it a few months ago. My issue arose when I started driving it. The radio doesn't work. It turns on, shows the time, and when I hit power it shows what station I'm tuned to, but there's no sound from the speakers. I use a Bluetooth adapter that plays sound from my phone to a radio frequency so I can listen to my playlist or podcast or what have you. This adapter, which plugs into the cigarette lighter, also rarely even turns on. Most of the time the display on it is off and the USB phone charger connected doesn't get any power. The only time this is remedied is when I turn it a certain way to line up the electrical contacts(?) Not sure if this is an electrical issue or what. It looks like all my fuses are in place, so should I just start looking for a new radio? Pull it out and check connections? Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

I think several things are at play here. Can you jiggle the key in the lock cylinder and get the radio to work or the plug to get power? That could be a worn ignition switch or lock cylinder. (The switch usually works on a rod down from the lock cylinder to the switch.) If it comes on when the key is in a certain position, your switch may be bad. This is kind of rare but it can happen, especially if the previous owner did a lot of short trips starting the truck each time and maybe a bunch of junk hanging off the key ring.

Myself, I'd get a volt meter and pull the radio out. There will be a red, yellow and orange wire most of the time. Orange is the illumination wire and will only have power when the lights are on. I think the yellow is your memory wire. It should have battery power all the time. The red, if I'm correct, is your power wire and will only have power in the run or accessory position on the ignition switch. If you're getting power to the red when the switch is on, your radio may just have gone bad. Mopar radios from the early 90's to 2000 were so tough, when I drove a lift truck, we would wire them up on the roof to listen to music at 2:00 am. Aftermarket radios might last a year due to dust and vibration. The Mopar radios lasted and lasted. We leased our equipment on three year leases and one radio lasted through three lifts.

If your radio is bad, you can get a really nice aftermarket and put in there. If you go this way, please, please, PLEASE, do it right. There installation kits to mount it in the dash. There are adapter kits to hook right into the factory wiring harness. I've worked on many vehicles through the years where a kid hacked into the wiring to add a "system". Rather than the plug and play kits, they'll try to save money ($25 on a $800 system) and just hack wires. This takes a lot of time and effort after they rip the system out rather than unplug it. Myslef and several other long term mechanics here will say "Fie, a pox upon thee " if you do that.

Anyway, check the power and then swap a known good radio in. It might be something else. With the age of the truck though, it might be something simple. I've seen aftermarket radios with DVD players and all sorts of things that we never had when I got my license. Usually you got AM, maybe with reverb and the high end cars might, MIGHT, have FM.

 

Thanks so much! Lots of great info here, I'll give it a shot!

 

I don't know what years this applies to, but I have a similar issue in my truck because of the Infinity sound system. If your truck has speakers in the A pillars (meaning 6 speakers total), it could be possible that the amps have gone out. My stock radio works just fine, and I get power and signal to the speakers, and the speakers work just fine, but when the signal goes into the amp nothing comes out.