Speakers stopped working

Maintenance/Repairs
1

2012 Ford Fiesta

Problem: All speakers have completely stopped working, except for loud horrible scratching and popping sounds which seem to happen out of nowhere for no reason at all, even sometimes for a few minutes after the car has been turned off. I ended up pulling out the fuse for the sound system just to stop it.

History: 18 months ago during a drive, speakers were working fine until they made a single loud pop. Then they would not work at all or make any noise. Tried turning the car off, but got nothing. After turning it off for a few minutes then turning it back on, the speakers started working again. That is what I would do for several months whenever this happened (which was not often, maybe once every month or two): Turn off the car for a few minutes, then turn it back on. Eventually the speakers started getting this horrible scratching/popping sound before making one final pop and shutting off. Turning the car off for a few minutes no longer worked. The speakers would come back on, but only with more scratching and popping before shutting off a few minutes later. As mentioned previously, I pulled the fuse just to get the random noise to stop.

I have not done much to troubleshoot, but I did try switching the fuse with no success. Does anyone have any ideas of where I could look to solve the problem? The mechanics that I have spoken to on the phone have said that it would cost a lot to chase down an electrical issue, and I was hoping to narrow it down before taking it to them.

2

A car audio shop may be better at diagnosis.

3

You don’t want to do much troubleshooting unless you plan to fix it yourself. They will fix anything you direct them to, but won’t guarantee the radio will work afterwards unless they do the troubleshooting.

Is there an auxiliary output? If so, try listening with headphones to see if you get intelligible sound when the speakers don’t provide any.

The way you explain it, the problem sounds like it is electronic. Replacing a component might fix it, but the cost to locate the part or parts might be more than replacing the radio. The radio might have an antitheft system that will make it difficult to replace and work properly. Make sure you know how to deal with that if you replace the radio.

4

Thank you both for your responses.

In response to jtsanders, I’m not sure if I can use the auxiliary. There is something I forgot to mention which might be relevant. The software that allows the radio to function (I think Ford calls it SYNC) seems to be frozen as well. These things happened at different times though who knows if they’re related. Pulling the fuse and reinserting it resolved that issue a few times, though I don’t think it has worked recently. But I’ll see what I can do.

5

If you want SYNC to work, take it to either a Ford dealer or a professional car stereo shop that can deal with it. You can probably get an idea of the cost of a new A/V unit on line.