1997 Stratus 4-cyl 2.0, 126000 mi.

Recently my battery went dead - it was the original battery so I got my money's worth! 2 weeks later, the radio cuts out on me as I'm driving. This is an afternarket stereo that I installed over a year ago and I've had no problems. The radio now does not work at all - no lights. Completely dead. Then I noticed that my power door locks and mirrors don't work either. I've got the Hayne's manual and have tried to connect the three to something common. I have not gotten out my meter yet and troubleshot the situation but I figured I would post the question here first to see if anyone has had this similar thing happen to them.

TIA

taco

 

not sure but think they are 2 circuts. check fuse is my only thought. good luck and let us know the deal.

 

i once had that same problem in another car and i blewe the fuses for the accessories as well as the fuse that is in the back of the radio it self or it is on one of the wires that goes to the radio. ie. the power cord. let us know what the situation ended up being. they are two different circuits.

 

OK so last night I investigated a little further and found that my brake lights didn't work either!!

So I pulled the fuse for the brake lights and sure enough it was blown. I'm not exactly sure why it blew. It was pretty corroded on one terminal so it may have been arcing and got a surge. As I was removing it, I could see it arcing inside. Before I installed a new fuse, I measured with an ohmmeter how much resistance was there on the non-hot side of the fuse socket. If it was a direct short, the fuse would surely blow again. It measured about 1.7 ohms which equals roughly 8 or 9 amps. The fuse was a 20A but I only had a 15A available so I used that for now. Once I installed the fuse everything (brake lights, locks, mirrors, radio) started to work.

Weird how all of that other stuff is on the same circuit.

taco

 

well thats good to know that you got it all fixed.