I needed a jump and hooked up red to negative and black to positive on my car. I noticed it after about 5 seconds and took them off. Since then my radio/clock has not worked. The fuse is still good. 2000 Mercury Villager. Any ideas.
Thanks
Also. Everything else still works fine.
Electricity travels at the speed of light, therefore a few seconds is an eternity. If the radio was turned on the reverse polarity could have killed it. If the car starts, runs OK, and charges then you are lucky that it is only the radio that doesn’t work.
If the radio is indeed shot, then you can see about buying a replacement on ebay. As well as the fuse there maybe a relay in the circuit somewhere. Some radios also have an internal fuse that can blow. The fact that the clock is gone too is a bad sign.
Reverse polarity pretty much instantly destroys solid state DC electronics that don’t have a reverse polarity protection circuit built in. I’m going to guess your radio doesn’t.
I hate to say this, but I would not be surprised if thee are other problems you have not found yet.