Radio failing - '95 Highline

[worldlyone]

Hi. I bought my '95 Highline in August of '94. It has only 58,000 miles on it. Over the last two years, the radio has failed as follows. The car came from the factory with four speakers - two in the front doors and two under the rear parcel shelf. The speakers started making sparking noises/static one by one until now only the left front works. I have had to use the balance and fade controls to make it possible to listen to the one good speaker. Funny enough, the right front speaker now makes sparking noises EVEN WHEN THE RADIO IS TURNED OFF!

Today, I put my electrical meter on the rear speakers (with the radio on and the fade control balanced) and couldn't detect any juice.

For the record, the car is clean and dry. Corrosion should not be a problem in the doors, and certainly is not a problem under the parcel shelf where I can see the squeaky clean connections (I live in a warm climate, and we rarely see salt on the roads here). I have pulled the plug on the back of the radio and reinstalled same - that didn't help. I have cleaned the terminals on the engine/body grounding strap. Ideas? Thanks, Al.

[dodgeneonACR98]

Sounds like a shorted condition in the Radio its'self.ID try to get a new one. and see if it helps. If there is a grounding out problem it would most likely burn out all channels of the radio output, Not one at a time. Hope you get it fixxed

[worldlyone]

Sounds like a shorted condition in the Radio its'self.

Do you know if bad radios are a common problem? Are later radios better?

[dodgeneonACR98]

NOT common at all really. But there is always an exeption. Im just going by MY past experiences in Stereo instalations. Ive never seen chanels in a stereo go bad one by one, Not from a shorted or crossed wire.They usually go all at once if they go out at all.( im my expearience) For instance My passenger side speaker shorted and burnt up my Pioneer DEHp 6600, I got a new one and it Played for a few sec and protection kicked on, it went off, OK I took it back and got another one An ALPINE (which I hate)
I found the problem after installing it, And bought new door speakers.

A crackling or static sound is usually due to a loose wire or conection. Then if you don't have a problem with wires or loose connectors it only leaves one route to go.
A new Stereo. Maybe it has loose or cold solder joints on the circuit board.

You can always have the stereo installed at the place you buy it, Normally they will install anything over a 100 bucks for free at most stereo shops. Good luck I know how it sucks to be without stereo.