Stereo & Electronics - Mute isn't working... seriously, wtf.

This is a new one for me... I'm not driving a fucking Saab or something, so it threw me completely off my rocker... I wasn't sure whether or not I should laugh or be seriously worried.


At first, I didn't think much of this, I hit the mute (steering wheel control) and all was well, for about 2 miles down the road... as I stopped, I noticed my idle dropped a little and surged, then when I started to go again, my radio unmuted itself... I hit it again, wondering wtf... 15 seconds later, its on again.

I muted it a number of times, over and over, sometimes it'd stay for 15-30 seconds, sometimes only 1 or 2 seconds... :engarde: after going back and forth with it for awhile, I just turned it off.

Could a low battery be causing this? The battery has been in the car since 01, never been replaced, but starting to wonder if maybe I should look into replacing it.

stupid electrical, I can wire a fucking house together just fine, box and all, but automotive electrical, forget about that shit, I'm at a total loss here.

anyone?

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that there is a wire in the harness specifically for the "mute" feature. You might have a bad connection there. Couldn't hurt to pull the head unit out and inspect all the wires.

My mute button would work for a short time and then it would unmute all on its own. I just cleaned up the button and it's worked fine.

I doubt it's the wiring since all the steering wheel controls run through a single wire to the radio. Each button has a different resistor so the radio determines which one is pressed by measuring the voltage drop from its ignition reference voltage. It is quite possible that a bad battery or charging system could cause the problem (the radio might see a voltage drop that it interprets as a button being pressed) but you would probably have other symptoms (flickering lights, etc.) as well. It's also possible that the contact wheel in the steering column (the so-called "clock spring") is bad and introducing additional resistance. Or, you could just have a broken radio.