Car Stereos: stereo help please!!!, aa battery, wire harness

Question
we installed a new cd player in our 1996 suburban and now the speakers are not working... we had the wiring checked out by tons of people and its wired right... any ideas?

Answer
Hi Kacie,

There is nothing special I can really tell you to help.  If the old stereo worked, and you've installed the like colours on the wire harness you installed for the new deck, they should just plug in and work.

I'd suggest testing the speakers with a AA battery: disconnect the speakers, strip some insulation off their wires, and then touch each of the speaker leads to each of the speakers, hold them there, and run your finger along the battery.  If you get noise out of the speaker, you know it's the deck.  If you don't, wiring or the speaker itself is to blame.

You could also test the speaker leads with a multimeter: it should read 4 ohms.

And it sounds obvious, but make sure the volume on the deck is turned up (many have a default setting of no volume).  Also ensure the deck doesn't have an 'internal amp' option, or if it does, it's enabled.

JUstin