Car Stereos: hooked up an amp, rca cables, fuse panels

Question
I changed out all the speakers and the head unit was working fine. I added two subs and an amp and it worked for a few mins them shut down the head unit. I have checked all the fuses I can think of. Can you tell me if there is something I might have missed. Or did I fry my head unit!

Answer
Hi Becky,

It can be so many things that's caused this.

The first thing is to check the fuses (again).  I say this because you need to carefully check them, because they can get tiny little hairline fractures.  Also, many cars these days have 2 fuse panels.  One in the car and one under the hood.

The next thing I would suggest would be to remove all connection the radio has to the new amp you installed, and see if the radio comes back.  Then you can at least ascertain what it is that's going on.  The radio turning off is concerning because there is very little connecting the amp to the deck; only a remote wire, and RCA cables.

If you used an amp that uses speaker wires to get its signal instead of RCAs, that could be part of your problem if something was wired incorrectly.

Also, check the back of your aftermarket amp; some amps have their own fuses inside of them.  And some harnesses have inline fuses in the yellow 12v constant wire.  Check that too.

Justin