I have the factory Bose sound system, a Kenwood deck, and some subs in the trunk.

The other night I was driving around with a passenger in the car so I had the volume turned down really low, like 1 or 2, barely enough to even hear it if you tried. About 20 minutes into the drive we decide to get some tunes rolling and we find out I am not getting any sound.

I have checked every fuse in the fusible link box under the hood, and by the steering wheel. Just about any fuse that says either Speaker1, Bose, or Audio, seems to be fine.


Normally when I turn my head unit on, or out of standby or something I hear an audible click under the glove box and then sound comes. It has done this since i got the car. Ever since I stopped getting sound, I no longer get this click.

What all can I check? Are there other wires to check for? Nothing works, none of my speakers, nor does my amp for my subs turn on.

 

does your HU have a fuse in the back? Chk that.

 

^^ i agree, check ya fuses on ya head unit and ya amp. Make sure none of them are blown.

 

is it on mute? might sound dumb but ive done it. you can turn the volume as high as you want but if your muted.... nothing.

 

Hah, I've been there and done that. But nope, it isn't on mute. Even if it is on mute I still hear the click under the dashboard when it turns on though.

BTW, speaking of which, is there a bose amp or something under the dashboard, like under the glove box? Because I always used to hear a click from under there when I would turn my deck on, or switch it out of standby.

 

no. each of the speakers have their own amp attached. we probably have some relays down there. do u have a FSM for your car?

 

Yes I do, I checked it out and it has some diagrams, but doesn't tell locations.

Because nothing clicks underneath the dashboard and it used to, could that possibly be a relay thats out? I can't seem to find anything under there.

Also what is peculiar was that whatever blew out did so with the volume almost completely down, so it isn't like I was blasting it and stressing the system or anything.

 

The Bose amp relay is behind the passenger side kick panel just ahead of the door edge below the glover box. Remove the plastic cover then the metal plate behind it. The relay is behind the metal panel.

 

Remove the head unit and check the blue wire (usually the "amp turn on" wire) to see if it's connected properly. This turns on the Bose amps. If its not hooked up, the amps will not turn on, and you will here no "click" behind the kickpanel, or sound from the speakers. Good luck!

 

Awesome, thanks for the info guys. Once I figure out how to take my dash apart without breaking anything I will definitely check the fuse on the back of the head unit, the blue remote (amp turn on) wire, and I will check out the relay behind the kickpanel.


Just curious, this setup with the subs in the trunk and kenwood deck came with the car. I won't know for sure until I open it up, but just curious how did they manage two blue "amp turn on" wires? Cause I assume there is at least one for the Bose amps, and then one for amp in the trunk for the subs.

 

They may have piggybacked a second relay to the HU Bose amp enable output. The added load may have damaged this output or they may have done a poor splice that eventually came loose. You have to check it out. If you remove the Bose amp relay behind the kick panel and get 12V at pin 1, the HU should be ok.

Not knowing the HU has a mute input, I controlled this relay to mute the radio for my bluetooth handsfree a few years back.

 

Hmm. I have been having trouble removing the piece of my dashboard with the clock, hazard, and defrost buttons. I got it pried up like an inch or so, but it feels like now I am going to snap the vents off if I pry any harder. Any tips on removing this without breaking it?

Thanks again guys

 

Use a trim tool and pry from both sides.

 

That's a toughie, I had problems removing it too. Make sure you've "dislodged" the fasteners between the vent trim piece and the radio trim piece by pulling the bottom of the radio trim piece towards you (IIRC), that will break them loose and you can't do much towards removing them without doing this first.

 

Are you saying there are fasteners between the vents themselves and the piece with the clock/defrost/hazard buttons and I need to separate the two?

 

its like tabs that hold the vent. u have to pull it out from the bottom first so u dont break them and then you can just pop it off.

 

Awesome I got it all apart. Here is where it stands now:

1.) Fuse on the back of the HU is fine.
2.) The remote wire is fine and also looks very professional and is spliced into another wire that goes off to the connector for the bose, so the blue wires are fine.


As it stands, even if there was a problem with the bose or a relay that is out, everything looks PERFECT as far as there being no issues with the amplifier for the subwoofers. So even if there was a problem with the bose, my amp in the trunk should still be turning on. For some reason it seems like it is just that even though the remote wires are connected properly, they aren't doing their job and turning on the amps.


On a side note, within a week (about a week earlier) of these audio issues, I also noticed I got a check engine light for both my o2 sensor heaters, which I thought was extremely strange because I bought brand new o2 sensors about a month ago. Well, last night when I was messing around checking things out, it appears that my 15A fuse inside the car for the o2 sensors was blown. I put a new fuse in, and that one blew too!

Any way these problems could be related? It all seemed to happen after putting my transmission back in the car. I have no idea how that would have anything to do with it, but these electrical problems are very odd.

 

The click you no longer hear when you turn on the radio is probably the audio amp relay, it is located by the glove box. Two fuses related to the Bose system are F21 (10amp fuse) and F22 (15 Amp) thes fuses are located in the underdash fuse holder. The fuse numbers are molded into the holder (kind of hard to see). Check these two very closely remove them from the fuse box and take a good look. I have had many org member say they check the fuses but they did not properly check them.

 

One more thing F21 and 22 are in the middle row of the three rows of fuses, it's easy to mistake that they are in the left row. If F22 (15 AMP) is blown it will cause the problem you describe (radio turns on but no sound from speakers), but the audio relay would still click (turn on). Are you sure you did not do any work to the audio / electrical system just prior to this problem happening? Maybe before you went for the drive? If I had to put money I would have to say either F22 is blown or it is not installed in the the proper location in the fuse holder.

 

The information I am providing is based on the electrical diagram for the stock Bose system. I'm not sure what you mean by Kenwood deck? Was this an aftermarket add-on? If so there may be other possibile causes to your problem.

 

Yep, I carefully checked those fuses and I replaced them anyway just to check. The audio relay does not click at all. Nor does my amplifier in the trunk for my subwoofers turn on either.

I had not done any electrical work to the car at all, and definitely had not done anything to the car period within a week or so of this problem happening.

Also, I might add that for some odd reason, I am blowing 15amp fuses for my o2 sensors.

Other than that, I just spent 45 minutes carefully removing, checking, and replacing every fuse in the vehicle. It appears the only fuse I can find that is blown, is the o2 sensor fuse. As for the audio, I can't figure it out at all.

 

Where is this 15Amp O2 sensor fuse located under dash or under hood? The audio relay circuit is very simple I can figure this out. You do not need to check every fuse but make sure you are checking fuses 21 and 22 in the middle row under dash. You may try taking those two out again. Sorry that I am sceptical but I have so many people tell me fuses are OK when they are not.

 

I'm still trying to figure out if this is a stock Bose system or if aftermarket deck? or amps have been added by someone. If it is not stock than it makes it difficult for me to trouble shoot. If it is not stock I would have to say something in the "modifications" is causing your problem but that is difficult fo me to identify. You are right about persusing the audio relay problem, if that relay does not turn on you will not have soound.

 

There is a grren with white stripe wire that runs from the bose system to the audio relay this wire must have 12VDC for the audio relay to turn on. If you can inspect this wire make sure someone did not splice/add something to it.

 

You probably need to get at the audio amp relay to makesure connection are OK there. If you do not have 12VDC at the green/white wire you can jump it there to force that relay to turn on.

 

First off, I would like to say thanks a bunch for trying to help me out!

The 15A o2 sensor fuse is located under the dash. Double, triple, and quadruple checked fuses 21 and 22. If you want I could remove them and show you pictures of them, but I really do not think it is the fuses as I replaced them anyway.

Everything is stock except the Bose head unit is gone and in its place is a Kenwood head unit. It looks like the install was done professionally, it was also this way when I purchased the car and has been working flawlessly for months.

The only difference is there are also subwoofers in the trunk, but they are wired independantly from the rest of the system. The Kenwood head unit has a seperate out for the subwoofers, the sub woofer's amp is powered and grounded right off the battery and is completely independant from the stock Bose systm or any speakers.

The ONLY connection between the factory stock Bose speakers and aftermarket subs in the back is that they share the blue wire, or remote wire, or "amp turn on" wire. Here the wire comes out of the back of the Kenwood head unit in a wiring bundle, goes to the bose amp turn on wire, and then is also spliced to another blue wire that goes straight to the trunk for the aftermarket subwoofers.

This is the only connection between the two systems, and since both systems went out on me at the same time, I expected the problem was exactly here, however I have double and triple checked this all, these wires seem to be spliced together properly and are the correct wires.

This is definitely my next step. I have been having trouble locating this amp relay however. Is it underneath the black plastic piece directly underneath the glove box?


Thanks again for all your help, it is definitely appreciated.

 

As far as location of relay, go to EL-299 of FSM if you have access. I can hear mine clicking but can not locate it. Too hard to crawl in there. It will have a green with white stripe wire running to it. The green with white wire is the Amp on signal (page EL-121 of FSM). This signal turns on the audio relay, once you fix it your sound will work. If this was a blown fuse problem it could only be F22 (15 AMP) no other fuse. But since audio relay is not turning on (clicking) F22 does not matter at this point.


O2 sensor issues should be unrelated to this problem. Good luck let me know what you find.

 

That blue wire is probably connected to the green/white wire. It needs to provide to 12VDC to turn on the amps. Check that the kenwood unit outputs this 12VDC when you turn it on. Check for fuses on this wire, check for good connections. If you get nowhere just conect the blue wire directly to the green and white wire and remove any others (just for testing).

 

Hmm, EL-299 of the FSM for me is the system description of Step Lamp - IVMS.

However, under EL-308, Location of Electrical Units- Passenger compartment it shows the audio amp relay next to the door mirror defogger relay. However, from this picture I can't tell whether or not this is in the center console, under the glove box, or behind that plastic peice next to the door.

 

We must have different versions of FSM's, that is the picture I was refering to, hard to tell. Just have to get on there, look for the wires.

 

I was just looking at kenwood stereo hookups looks like blue wire is for power antenna pink/black is for external amp, maybe this is cause of problem? Can you activate power antenna? What model do you have?


Maybe this will help.

http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Support/Ca...ers_Manuals/#_

 

I have the Kenwood KDC MP235

Here is the manual for it:
http://inform3.kenwoodusa.com/manuals%5CKDC-MP2035.pdf

According to the manual the blue wire shouldn't be connected to anything, and it isn't.

The blue wire with the white stripe however should be connected to the green/white wire which like you said is the bose amp turn on wire. It is connected, and the sub turn on wire for the amp in the trunk is also spliced into this, but neither turns on.

Unfortunately I don't have a multi meter or anything at the moment, so I can't test the voltage on this wire. As for the bose amp relay, I still can't find it, however I don't think this relay is bad.

For some reason now it feels more and more like this is an issue with the Kenwood head unit not sending signal to the blue wire with white stripe.


Also, as seen in the Kenwood manual I posted the link to, it states on page 9 under subwoofer output that if I push the control **** toward AM for 2 second or more and I can turn the subwoofers on or off. For some odd reason, this function does not work, yet I remember it used to work.

I have a feeling the way the Kenwood head unit controls this is by that blue wire with the white stripe. In most cars, sure that works great. But in this car with the amplified bose system, the deck has to treat the on/off of the bose system just like a subwoofer through this blue/white wire, which my subs AND bose green/white wire are connected.

The fact that the deck is malfunctioning with this function not working leads me to beleive it isn't outputting. Maybe I will go see if I can pick up a Kenwood deck similar to mine and hopefully it should connect right up to the same harness. That should help in troubleshooting if it is the deck or not.

 

Blue/white is labeled power control / motor antenna. Have you tried both the AM/FM and CD to see if anything works? Yes you are probably not getting 12VDC from this wire like you should to activate the audio relay or your subwoofer relay. Other possibility is bad connection on this wire or blown fuse if one is connected to this line (unlikely). You need a DC voltmeter or test light to see if 12VDC is present.

 

If the brown wire Tel mute is grounded or touching ground stereo goes into mute mode, display shows "call". This is not happening?


If you want to test if there is a problem with the Kenwood output just diconnect the blue/white wire from the green/white and sub woofer wires and run a wire from any 12VDC source directly to the green/white and sub wires this should activate the audio relay and the subwoofer (trust me?). The worse that can happen would be for a fuse to blow (unlikely)


If the problem is the Kenwood and you don't want to buy a new unit you can probably install at switch to control this function.

 

Hmm good idea! I might try and get a multi meter or something like that because I planned to calibrate my Throttle Position Sensor anyway, I might just hook that up and see if I am getting the 12v to those wires.

 

Ok update: On the connector on the back of the deck, I checked the red wire. +12 volts. What it should be, it means my multi meter is working properly too.

I checked the remote wire or amp turn on wire, the blue one with the white stripe that should turn on my subs in the trunk as well as feed into the white/green wire to the Bose to turn that on as well. It read nothing.

So I guess even though the deck works perfectly (what I said about the SW output thing not working in my above post was actually wrong, there was another setting that enabled that, so I turned it on and it still didnt work), it is not outputting any power to the remote wire. Problem with the head unit I guess.

 

You can also try disconnecting the output blue wire to the sub woofer and see if the bose speaker/ amp system may work on its own. Maybe you can get at the blue wire at the subwoofer. Maybe the subwoofer is having a problem and pulling this output down. You can also disconnect the bose system (green/white wire) and see if the system works with just the subwoofer connected.

 

I tried both already. Disconnected the subwoofer's amplifier, Bose still didn't turn on, disconnected the Bose, subwoofers still didn't turn on.

For some odd reason everything about my HU works perfectly except it just stopped outputting power to this blue and white wire. My next step is splicing it into the red 12v wire that powers the HU.

 

have you tried hooking up a different cd player, just to make sure its not your head unit.



One time i was putting in new speakers and some how i blew out the motherboard on my HU, it still turned on and appeared to be working.

 

Nope, not yet. From the looks of it though, it seems like it is my headunit. I think I am going to try splicing in power from the 12v red wire to the remote wire and see if it kicks on the amps.