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My stereo is on the fritz anyone tell me how to fix it? The speakers work when it wants stays at low volume if I turn it up it goes off. Agrivated please help
My stereo is on the fritz anyone tell me how to fix it? The speakers work when it wants stays at low volume if I turn it up it goes off. Agrivated please help
The head units (what you call "stereo", I assume) in our cars tend to fail at/around 12 years of age. The Bose head units in particular fail often and early.
It's easier to replace a head unit than to fix it. You can buy one in almost any electronic store, including online stores. It will cost you about $100. It's a pull-out/plug-in replacement, unless your existing head unit is a Bose. If so, and if you are replacing it with a non-Bose, you need three adapters - one of each, for speakers, power, and antenna.
make sure its not your phone? what are you playing? be more descriptive, i am currently having tape issues and am buying a tape cleaner first, then if that dosent work, i am going to solder a cable to the tape input for an aux connection.
but there are a few things that could be wrong here, left side speakers cut out? sub woofer cut out?
The fix unfortunately is another head unit. Not sure if yours is the Bose stereo or not...if so, the early 5th generation Maximas (2000 and 2001) used single disc in-dash Bose units (actually made by Clarion) that were fairly reliable and can be found relatively cheap at salvage yards- you can check www.car-part.com for salvage yards near your area (just choose the option to search by distance.)
The 2002 and 2003 5th gen Maxima Bose units switched to an in-dash 6 disc CD changer (also made by Clarion) that has all sorts of trouble- would stop reading discs after a short period of time, and for some wacky reason the CD sound would start cutting out on the left channel (but the tape deck and radio would still be fine.) I have an 02 Maxima that my changer unit started having these problems, and I was able to find and install an earlier single-disc unit from a 2000 model. It fits up to the dash just fine, and the wiring harness plugs in back are the same- the only drawback is you lose steering wheel controls when doing this swap.
Then of course as others have mentioned you can replace the factory unit with an aftermarket unit-- however if your factory unit is a Bose, be aware that the Bose systems use a single independent amplifier for each speaker instead of one main amp built into the head unit. So be aware that if swapping to an aftermarket unit with built-in amplification, you would need to bypass each individual speaker amp to keep from double-amplifying the speakers. OR you could use the preamp outputs on your new stereo (if it has them) in conjunction with the factory speaker amps- you would just need to find a low-level (RCA) to high-level (speaker wire) converter- something like this should work:
The fix unfortunately is another head unit. Not sure if yours is the Bose stereo or not...if so, the early 5th generation Maximas (2000 and 2001) used single disc in-dash Bose units (actually made by Clarion) that were fairly reliable and can be found relatively cheap at salvage yards- you can check www.car-part.com for salvage yards near your area (just choose the option to search by distance.)
The 2002 and 2003 5th gen Maxima Bose units switched to an in-dash 6 disc CD changer (also made by Clarion) that has all sorts of trouble- would stop reading discs after a short period of time, and for some wacky reason the CD sound would start cutting out on the left channel (but the tape deck and radio would still be fine.) I have an 02 Maxima that my changer unit started having these problems, and I was able to find and install an earlier single-disc unit from a 2000 model. It fits up to the dash just fine, and the wiring harness plugs in back are the same- the only drawback is you lose steering wheel controls when doing this swap.
Then of course as others have mentioned you can replace the factory unit with an aftermarket unit-- however if your factory unit is a Bose, be aware that the Bose systems use a single independent amplifier for each speaker instead of one main amp built into the head unit. So be aware that if swapping to an aftermarket unit with built-in amplification, you would need to bypass each individual speaker amp to keep from double-amplifying the speakers. OR you could use the preamp outputs on your new stereo (if it has them) in conjunction with the factory speaker amps- you would just need to find a low-level (RCA) to high-level (speaker wire) converter- something like this should work:
Yes but if you swap one of those single disc 5.0 gen (2000 or 2001) units into a 5.5 gen (2002 or 2003) the steering wheel controls of the later car will not work with it. You also lose the ability to change the dash readout between MPG, ambient temp, etc... Basically any steering wheel controls on the LEFT side of the steering wheel cease to function. The right side steering wheel controls (cruise control) still function fine.
It was still worth it to me to have a functional stereo.
Last edited by chop_sooie; 03-13-2019 at 10:52 AM.
Yes but if you swap one of those 5.0 gen (2000 or 2001) single disc units into a 5.5 gen (2002 or 2003) the steering wheel controls of the later car will not work with it.
Yes, Tried doing that with the 2003 I had (2001 radio into a 2003). Still lost the steering controls. I did some research and it seems that the '01 radio links up with the steering wheel controls in a different way than the '02 and '03.
Yes but if you swap one of those single disc 5.0 gen (2000 or 2001) units into a 5.5 gen (2002 or 2003) the steering wheel controls of the later car will not work with it. You also lose the ability to change the dash readout between MPG, ambient temp, etc... Basically any steering wheel controls on the LEFT side of the steering wheel cease to function. The right side steering wheel controls (cruise control) still function fine.
It was still worth it to me to have a functional stereo.
Yes, also those functions will cease to work. Also was worth it to me as i don't like the 2003 radio.
Yes, also those functions will cease to work. Also was worth it to me as i don't like the 2003 radio.
My 2002 six-disc unit wouldn't read discs half the time, skipped on flawless CDs, and the left channel would just suddenly drop out after about 20 minutes of CD listening. Losing the steering wheel controls IMO is a fair trade to have a functional stereo. Clarion really dropped the ball on that six disc POS.
Incidentally, I consider the Bose system in the 97-99 4th gen Maximas to be one of the best sounding factory systems I've ever heard. The 5th gen units (single disc OR six disc) seem to be a bit more "muddy" sounding, and I can't decide whether it's because of the addition of the rear sub (which does NOTHING for the sound quality) or because they moved the front tweeters from the doors up to the A pillars, or different speaker materials, or a combination of everything. It sounds.. OK, but nowhere near as good as the 4th gen. I was excited to hear a new CD every time I drove my 99 Maxima.
Last edited by chop_sooie; 03-13-2019 at 10:59 AM.
An addendum to my post above- apparently if going with a aftermarket stereo you have to make sure that the preamp outputs on the new stereo are at least 4v, anything less and you won't get the correct volume sound (or maybe nothing at all) out of the new stereo.
Also an adapter kit like this would probably be the way to go (you can see the RCA jacks already spliced into the speaker level wiring):
Note the substantially increased cost....but gives you a wealth of additional features (steering wheel controls, isolated transformers on outputs, adjustable gain on preamp voltage etc.)
An addendum to my post above- apparently if going with a aftermarket stereo you have to make sure that the preamp outputs on the new stereo are at least 4v, anything less and you won't get the correct volume sound (or maybe nothing at all) out of the new stereo.
Also an adapter kit like this would probably be the way to go (you can see the RCA jacks already spliced into the speaker level wiring):
Note the substantially increased cost....but gives you a wealth of additional features (steering wheel controls, isolated transformers on outputs, adjustable gain on preamp voltage etc.)
03-11-2019, 10:31 PM
