Expert: Peter G. Lee - 7/23/2006

Question
I have a 97 saturn. I have kenwood deck 500 watt amp cap 1.0 cap and 2 10s.

Every thing has been working fine for 2 years then all of the sudden I keep blowing the main stereo fuse. I have check all the wiring and everything is good.

Please help I hate not having a stereo to listen to.

Answer
When you say "main stereo fuse" I presume you mean the one in the back of the head unit or inline on the loom rather than the one in the fuse box?

Have you installed any accessories lately? a screw through a lead can be the fault, been done many a time.

Disconnect the speaker leads, light, antenna and the (usually blue) amp signal lead to the amp from the back of the head unit just leaving the three leads you need to run the unit, (live, ignition and earth).

Still does it? Problem with the head unit internally and off you go to a repair shop.

Fuse didn't blow? Then connect the blue lead to the amp signal, blows the fuse? Problem with the amp internals shorting out the blue signal lead back into the head unit..

Didn’t blow? Connect speakers, blows? Problem with a speaker or speaker lead dead short forcing a fault in the amp.

By removing all possible causes and reconnecting one at a time you can logically locate the fault 9 times out of ten.