Friends amp over heating

Hi all ..my friend has a sony xploide 300 wat 2 channel amp i think it is just powering a single sub, he says its geting extreamly hot like you touch it and it will burn you, any idea on what could cause that. He has it in the trunk area of his cherrokee

possible causes
1 - it's a Sony
2 - gain is too high
3 - impedence of the speaker it's running is too low

Does it ever shut off and go into thermal protection or does it just get hot?

ya he says it cuts out

Ah, if it just got hot then it wouldn't really be a problem, some amps are built to run hot, but if it goes into protection because if it then something is wrong. Have him check those things I listed (except for #1, no need to check that ;)).

Or just tell him to save himself a non-sony amp and non-sony sub.

ya well at least he didnt pay for it xmass gift.. the sub is a 450 watt jensen 10" he found at wall mart for 50bucks