Car stereo problem - occasional pops with a "skipping noise"

[Hi There, Am Pam]

My Kenwood deck seems to be on the way out, I think. At certain volumes, it eventually makes a huge popping noise, and sounds like it's skipping for a second, and then plays normally. Sometimes, after the pop, the CD starts out at a very low volume, and begins to fade in. I think it's possesed. Anyone know what could cause this?

I used to think Kenwood was a good brand. I've had nothing but trouble with Kenwoods. The CD changer stopped working, got it fixed, and now only the right channel plays. I once dropped the faceplate to my current deck, while in it's case, and the text to it has been scrambled ever since.

If I were to get a new deck, which might have to wait, I'm leaning towards Alpine. They apparently are fairly well intergrated with iPods, in case I ever got one of those. The speakers need to be changed in my car as well. The paper cones look like they've been put through a shredder.


But as long as my car keeps running, I'll be happy. Which reminds me, I should check my fluids & tire pressure.

[Divine]

i have a Pioneer with all kinds of little scenes on the screen. it rocks. I had the older version before this one. Pioneer rocks. if i have the old one, i'd send it to you. it has dolphins, planes and about 5 other visualizations.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

Cool! Pinoneer makes some nice stuff. What kind of car do you drive, Danny?

[Divine]

an 85' mercedes diesel :O i'm so ghetto! but actually, it's in PERFECT condition. i mean, i was amazed when i saw it. i picked that over a grand prix :( i wanted to be all cool... actually i just liked the color..

[Divine]

plus amazing gaz mileage and a kick ass sun roof. plus, everything is all european. like the gas gauge and oil/water gauges. even down to the air conditioning controls. not like a normal american car. because, it's not. duh.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

Is it hard to find disel pumps? I'd imagine that would be the biggest downside to disel.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

PS. There used to be an older Mercedes that was just down the road from me, and the owner completely pimped it out, and not in the good way. Very tacky.

[Divine]

we mostly just made it look original. the interior is flawless like the beautiful blue pain job. i'll have to get a picture of it. diesel is everywhere around here, not hard to find. it's texas. oil field land -- so therefore lots of diesel big trucks and work trucks around. farm cars also. so they can be kept running forever. my car was used by a "maid" who would drive her boss around and the lady would sit in the car, all nice and cool while the maid did the shopping and stuff. i read about it.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

That sure beats my car, which has been used in a few family vacations, and has various minor problems which doesn't really effect the way it runs, but are annoying none-the-less. For example, one of the AC/fan vents is broken, but only in that you can't direct the air where you want. Or the fold out cupholder, which has broken plastic so it doesn't fold out as easily anymore. Or the broken trunk opener. Or the wheezing noise the car makes. Or the window which goes down really slowly because someone tried to break into it once.



But that's part of its charm! It's a giant nest. Sure, those things may be broken, but they're so minor that it's endearing more than dibilitating.

[Divine]

what kind of car? :O

[Hi There, Am Pam]

94 Mercury Sable

[Herr Lipp]

Danny, you're such a girl, impressed by the pretty lights :) I wouldnt mind one of those display ones, but the thing is my firend has one of those TV's that electronically fold in flush to the dash, so after Ive seen that (with TV and playstation I add) all CD players seem a bit crappy :) When I get a car worth putting one of those bad boys in, Ill do it.

Pioneer aint too bad but theyre nothing special. To tell you the truth I would choose a Kenwood (althogh not the model youve got american john) or a Sony XPlod (best output Ive heard) over a Pioneer.

John, do you live in a hot place? It sounds like youve got some connections melting and covering ovver parts of teh wire, or at worst one of your channels is on teh way out. Was it wired up correctly? SOme amateur put a stereo in for me once and it fucked up.

My mechanic buddy put a sub and amp in my car last week. It's warmed up now and let me tell you it's fucking LOUD! and the 12 inch sub and mahusive box give it a poo-inducing bass.

sigh...I wish I had a faster car....have to wait till I'm earning more, did you know that petrol may cost a pound a litre soon over here, thats like 1.8 dollars or something...for a litre!

[Divine]

omg, gas here is so cheap :O diesel is $2.12 gal :O

[Herr Lipp]

My old man swears by diesels. Im gettin a diesel next, far better economy. your car sounds pretty badass danny, i think i asked you before about it. get a picture done man. has it got alloys?

[Divine]

i should take a picture now, but the plumber is here and the camera is in my uncles room :O party this past weekend. naked girls :oh: i'm scared. it's pretty, you'll see it, it just rained so there's pine needles on it. :O you'll see my house too!

[Hi There, Am Pam]

Originally posted by Walter Sopchak
John, do you live in a hot place? It sounds like youve got some connections melting and covering ovver parts of teh wire, or at worst one of your channels is on teh way out. Was it wired up correctly? SOme amateur put a stereo in for me once and it fucked up.

It's not especially hot, although it does get past 100 degrees occasionally. That could be the problem. The stereo was put in by a local "professional" audio shop, and they did a good job. I've had it long enough that it's not an issue.

I just need a new one, caues it's a POS.


I've never seen the point in putting in a TV in a car, other than for the passengers. Still, it's cool if you got the money to waste, but I'd rather just have a nice system and spend it elsewhere.

[Herr Lipp]

Fair, Fair.

And I agree, I'd rather have a fucking BMW M5 or something with no tunes whatsoever than my current car with all those gadgets and shit.

THough, if I often travelled to different places I didnt know, I think Sat Nav would become a pretty useful tool. But people that just buy it so you see it on their dashboard are lame-os.

[Divine]

yeah, if i had it... i would have to be in traveling mode. it would be useless any other way.

[Divine]

:O unless it came with auto-pilot :O

*ding* i think i have an idea.

[Herr Lipp]

I heard that they're developing technology that would mean cars cannot break teh speed limits of teh roads they are driving in. That would suck so much balls, but to be fair, theres no reasonable argument against it.

[Divine]

yeah, fuck that. i'm always atleast 10mph over.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

Originally posted by Walter Sopchak
I heard that they're developing technology that would mean cars cannot break teh speed limits of teh roads they are driving in. That would suck so much balls, but to be fair, theres no reasonable argument against it.

:darn:



Really, I can't imagine there wouldn't be a work around for something like that. It would probably defeat millions of dollars in research by doing something like using a felt-tip marker like with CD burning.

[Herr Lipp]

i dont think it will happen, because surely putting tracking devices in our cars will cause a national uproar? people get narky when their freedoms chastised, innit.

and 70mph (the national max speed limit) is rather boring once youve been on the motorway for like 15 minutes.

danny/john: what have you had out of your respective motors? speed-wise.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

Well, out of my old car, a '92 Eagle Talon, I got up to 100 mph. My latest car just broke 45 mph the other day.

[Herr Lipp]

fuck! thats pretty slow!

Ah well American cars are big and clunky arent they. The space inside must be pretty good though idve thought? What size engine has it got, if you know? could do a comparison with my tiny little car (seriously they make motorbikes with bigger engines than my car now).

[Hi There, Am Pam]

I was joking about my new car. I've gotten it to about 85 mph. Kind of a pain to do so though, as it's not very stable (you feel the bumps quite a bit). It's got quite a bit of room though.

[Herr Lipp]

fair, fair. the american consumer obviously needs a lot of room to put their hot dogs, flags and guns and stuff.

oh well let me know (via this thread) what head unit you get, most importantly what brand. oh and id be interested to see how expensive they are over there. for a mid-range one (lets say 4x45W output) without the silly little cartoons I'd say you're looking at about 150pound or 250dollars over here.

[Hi There, Am Pam]

I'll probably end up getting something minimal at best, depending on my cash flow. I really need to replace the speakers while I'm at it, so I figure I'll get a pair of 6X8s for the back, and I already have a used pair of 6.5s for the front. I just need to get those installed (putting them in involves taking off the whole door panel, which is held together by plastic clips, as you can imagine, it would be a pain in the ass).

If you want to see how much they cost here, check out Crutchfield.com.

[Divine]

the mercedes will only go up to 110, but it takes time to get there. when driving on trips, it's awesome. it runs like a charm. somewhat slow on acceleration, but that's comparing to the acceleration of a cadillac. so i shouldn't compare. it's a good car, i do around 80mph on the highway.

[Herr Lipp]

John: I have a bitch to do all that tricky stuff for me :) Well, I call him a bitch, he's a 6'7 leviathan, who happens to be an apprentice mechanic (but with advanced skills as he's an apprentice to his dad). He managed to put connections between my car battery and the amp in my boot(trunk) through my door panels with a coat hanger. Legend. Yeah I've got Infinity 6x9's in teh back, but theyre running straight from the head unit, not boosted by an amp. Now Ive got teh sub I dont care, I just use them for teh mid-range. Standards in the front unfortunately, my mates got badboy ones with little tweeters (tweeters are the shit, they look ultra-cool)

Danny: Yeah thats a classic trait of older diesels man, they all climb slowly. I think your average british rude boy would be frustrated driving american cars. My last car, an Escort was 1.6 litre injection with a 16valve engine, and I got 125mph out of that. but that is slow compared to what my mechanic-bitch mate gets out of his Mondeo 2.0i....138 confirmed but thats before he put a new induction kit on it (which gives ya about 7/8bhp extra). He can set off car alarms if he drives between two of them and accelerates hard in 2nd gear :) Saying that american cars are more gangster space-wise. Its all about relaxing and to tell you the truth going at 125 scared me a bit man, only because I knew that it was gonna take literally 5 or 6 seconds to come back down to the speed limit safely. Thats too long if someone pulls into your lane or something, especially as I didnt have ABS (anti-lock brakes). I would think teh merc has ABS.

Wow car talk is almost as boring as footie talk!