1994 Altima Radio Power Problem

Hi guys,

I have a 1994 Altima GLE with a goofy radio. I bought a portable "car kit" Sirius radio the other day, plugged it into the cig adapter, listened to it for a bit during my commute, and next day, the stock in-car radio wouldn't turn on. Lamps are illuminated when I turn on my headlights, just no go with the power switch or the CD eject or anything.

Thinking I blew a fuse or something goofy, I yanked the 15 AMP fuse for the Radio, examined it, and it was fine. Then I looked down and said, woops, I acidentally pulled the 15 AMP Cig Lighter fuse instead. I pulled the real Radio fuse, examined it, it was also fine. Then, on a whim, I swapped the two fuses, put the "Cig lighter" 15 AMP fuse in the Radio 15 Amp Slot, turned the key, and viola, the car radio worked. Cig Lighter / Sirius Power Source also worked fine, even when swapped with the "bad radio" fuse. Strange, because the two fuses should have been the same, and via a visual inspection, both were in working order.

Now, today, I was at the mall at Sears, came outside and what.. no radio again. Okay, weird, I'll just do another swap in the parking lot, but this time it didn't work. I tried swapping it with another 15AMP fuse on the fusebox and didn't fix the problem, either. What I stupidly did not do was walk back into Sears and buy and try a bunch of extra fuses.

Now couple of quick questions: Would the cig lighter be tied into the radio by any way? I never, ever use the cig lighter, even for a cell phone recharger, so really adding the Sirius radio to the cig lighter is the only thing that has changed in the setup in the past few days.

Any ideas or things that I should try? Everything in the car is stock. I'm gonna try grabbing some extra fuses from the auto store, but I have my doubts that it is the problem because of the swap-trick I did which worked (but doesn't make sense why it worked).

Thanks in advance..

I have the same problem with my '93. the radio seems to work better in AM than FM. I was also wondering if I installed a new deck if I would have the same problem.

From what I understand the whole system is linked together, and it's a well known design flaw. If one speaker goes out, the whole system is rendered useless. I still haven't fixed my system, I just have a portable battery-operated boombox in the car's passenger seat right now. But I will eventually be putting a $200-ish aftermarket speaker and in-dash system.

This may Sound Strange. I have Seen this before more than a few times. Remove the radio , unplug it totally. Then plug it back in and recheck to see if it works.

What happens is it get shut down due to how do i say it. 2 Signals colliding.
there are allot of things going through the air some times they collide . Frequency jam they call it. It's Very uncommon , But when you work in a dealer you see everything. Newer car have this problem corrected so it won't happen , that i have seen . I have seen it on earlier Maxima's , Altima,s And Pathfinder and so on.

GL :)