ar Radio Audio Randomly Goes Off

[LeAeronautical]

Hi all,

I have a Mercury Sable, 1999. The car has that stupid football module that contains both the radio and the environmental controls in the same console so you have to replace the entire thing instead of just the radio if just the radio breaks. And that's turning out to be extremely expensive.

So, right now, whenever I'm in the car and the radio is on the audio will often randomly shut off. It doesn't matter if the CD player is on or if I'm listening to the air waves. When it does this, the radio will still be on (everything is digital) and the lights will still be on but the audio just randomly stops playing. What's even more bizarre is that if I'm listening to a CD (6-cd changer in the back of the car) and it cuts out, the CD keeps going, so when the audio comes back through the speakers the CD will be at some later point, whether it's 5 seconds later or 45 minutes later.

Also, sometimes the radio controls don't work. They'll freeze up and even pushing in the volume control (on/off) won't turn the radio off, it'll just stay frozen. I won't be able to change channels, switch to CD or tape, nothing.

Now, I drive 2 hours every single day and I can't not have a radio, I'll go insane. I want to know what could be the problem. Because the dealers don't seem to have a clue, they don't even offer suggestions. They just tell me to spend the absurd $500 and replace the entire console and the local electronics stores are telling me the same thing without even looking at it. For some reason I get the idea that I'm surrounded by greedy morons...

Anyway, could it be lose wiring, maybe the power supply? Could the electronics be fried? What are the possibilities and how can I test them? I am not much of a car person (although I do study engineering), and I don't really know where to begin with this. If necessary I will buy the parts to pull out the radio so I can look around and reinstall the thing myself.

Also, where can I find the console? The dealers want to charge me a ridiculous sum of money and I can't seem to find the console online. Also, is there another alternative besides this one? http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CDoQ8gIwBQ#
That would split up the radio and the environmental control, but currently my environmental control is digital and has more controls than are available on the manual one. I do not want to sacrifice any controls that are currently available. Is there a digital version of this dash kit?

Finally, why were the engineers who designed this thing hired in the first place? They did a horrible job designing this entire car. It's a complete mess. I had to replace the compressor and clutch recently, and what should have been only a few hours of labor cost me more than $500 in labor alone, not including parts, because of how horribly designed the engine layout is. The 1999 Mercury Sable is an engineering FAIL.

Anyway, thanks for you time!
-James

[speediva]

Have you looked into scrap/junk yards? Maybe you can find a center console for cheap. I might start there and if you can't find a console through that method, then see what other options are available...

[PaulD]

first thing, have you tried disconnecting the battery for several minutes - that may reset the unit. Second thing, it may be a short on one of the speaker wires, on some radios it will cause all of the outputs to be muted to protect to internal amp. You might be able to find a rplacement unit at a slavage yard.

As for the Car engineers, why do you think the american manufacturers were sucking wind so bad for so long. They often integrate several functions into one box, it is actually very economical- the radio box already has all the DC voltages needed for running accesory electronics and probably only uses half of the space.