Ron A

Yes,I did search!

I have a buzz, from ALL speakers, at a constant sound, when the engine is running. Speeding up the engine does not affect the buzz. Neither does adjusting fade or balance controls, or the air conditioning.

Turning off the engine, or turning the volume control to zero, stops the buzzing.

Adjusting the volume has no effect on the volume of the buzz. Again, it is constant at all volumes and all engine speeds. It does it from any source.

berthasan04TL

You have a bad ground I had the same problem and once i installed my alpine headunit the noise went away completely.

Kirk3272

iTrader: (1)

100% OEM system?

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

I'm trying to find a similar buzz on mine, mine does it only while the engine is running as well but mine varies with engine speed. I removed most of my ground cables that I added to eliminate those and I still have it.

I bought some No-Ox-ID and once I get it I'll be cleaning all the ground points in the fenders and the battery negative to the chassis and applying No-Ox-Id to all of those bolts and the battery terminals before I reconnect them.

Hoping I can find it. I had read that if it was in all speakers and only when the car is running it's a ground, if it's in all speakers both when the car is on or off it could be the amp.

I'll be using this stuff:

http://www.sanchem.com/aSpecialE.html

Ron A

I was afraid it's something like that, which is either impossible or very costly to find. And I don't really want to install a new head unit.

Yes. Never been repaired or altered.

Slpr04UA6

This website below fixed my amp, and were very helpful in describing what I was experiencing. I didn't have the buzzing noise, only low volume even when cranked. You could always call them and ask if they have any suggestions...if in fact it could be the amp.
It cost $125 to fix amp.

Carstereohelp.com

Kirk3272

iTrader: (1)

50/50 shot between the head unit and the amp. I'd lean towards the amp. Good thing is they are pretty cheap these days.

Ron A

Thanks for the replies. I hope it's the amp because that's easier to pull than the head unit, and cheaper too.

The buzz is pretty low so doesn't bother me much when driving but it is starting to get annoying.

I hate to go to the dealer and get screwed out of a lot of money so I'm going to look for a good car audio shop locally and ask them what they think about this and how much it might cost.

jf4boogie

I have the same and also a low volume issue.

I've replaced the amp with another factory unit and its still the same so it seems to be the headunit.

Does anyone have any recommendations on where to send it to for repair as well?

chrisd421

i had the same issue fro the day i bought my 04 tl... I had a complete jl system installed and they used LOC after the amp and the buzz got much worse. I have had it running on 2 channel for awhile to eliminate some of the noise, I was told to tap pre amp to eliminate it cuz its caused by the factory amp being bad, I am going to be doing it this weekk and i will let u know, Im going to un LOC pre amp and if thats too low of a signal im going with straight rca wired in pre amp.I am trying to eliminate the radio replacement until i can d a tablet also

genokan

I've got this exact same buzz. You say the amps are cheap, is there only one amp for the whole system? Are there any years that are cross compatible?

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

Well I cleaned all the exterior grounds, used NO-OX-ID and replaced all of the ground bolts with new OEM ones and no change to the buzzing.

My passenger side headlight works great now though, before I had a delay where it wouldn't always turn on. Comes on instantly now though.

Going to take a look at some of the interior grounds next.

the_tl_man09

Stock amp probably crapping out on you

Ron A

I'm getting about ready to pull the amp and send it for repair to that place posted above.

the_tl_man09

go for it. hopefully u get it resolved soon..nothing like having a poorly functioning radio

I hate cars

I would go with an aftermarket amp vs repairing the stock one. Even with stock speakers an aftermarket amp significantly improves sound quality and of course loudness. You can find a decent 5 or 6 channel amp cheap.

You need 6 channels to retain the stock setup including the sub and center.

The JLe6450 is a good cheap amp that would power your whole system. They're discontinued but you can still find a few places with them in stock for $200-250. You could do a JL XD600/6 amp which can be had for around $400 and won't consume much more power than the stock amp with it's higher efficiency and it's tiny, easily fitting under a seat. This amp can be run without a line driver, straight to the factory headunit, requiring no additional cost other than a wiring kit.

It's a very simple install but it would likely take most of a Saturday to do right. You can use the factory speaker wiring if you're retaining the factory speakers so no long wire runs are necessary and they're all in a bundle making tapping into them very easy.

The center is only necessary for navi and 5.1 surround. If yours is a non navi and you don't have a 5.1 disk collection you could get away with a 5 channel. This is assuming you want the rears functional.

Ron A

Thanks for all the info, I hate cars, but that is all way above my capability, ambition, and basic needs.

I used to do some modifications to my cars but lately I am strictly stock.

The stock amp satisfies all my needs, and if I can fix my problem with a rebuilt one for $150 then that's all I ask.

The dealer wants $150 just to analyze the problem, and then if it's the amp another $561 for the part (yes, they do overcharge on parts).

On the undesireable possibility that it's the head unit, that would be more for labor and sending it off, with the dealer making more profit off of this.

I would go to a local audio shop and see what they can do but there's not too many in my area and I got burned by one of them on a radio repiar for an older car.

CrazyEights

iTrader: (1)

Similar issue in mine except it either the right Tweeter or right front speaker that buzzes, nonexistent when the engine is off, awful buzz when it's on, gets worse after hands free.

I hope to fix it this weekend

CrazyEights

iTrader: (1)

Alright, so I don't know how much this will help, but I had my battery out today to change the transmission fluid and to modify the intake.

There was quite a bit of corrosion on my connectors, I cleaned that up with a wire brush and reconnected everything using some battery terminal grease, buzzing is virtually gone, still a very faint buzz when the music is at 01, but anything over that and I can't notice it. So my problem was probably grounding issues.

imakeholesinu

I get a slight buzz when the temperature gets below 40 outside. Once the car warms up the sound goes away. Hope you find a solution or at least a few more steps and things to try!

Superunknown

I had the same problem along with a gradual loss in volume. I replaced the amp with one from an '05 off eBay and it was resolved.

Whatever is going on with these amps doesn't seem easy to diagnose, as an audio shop struggled with mine for days before I replaced the amp.

chrisd421

mine did the same. i bypassed factory amp and installed a jl amp, fixed the problem

CLOS_TL

Took my car yesterday to cartoys for engine noise n come to find out it's the factory amp . Do I need to replace it

pohljm

Only if you want to eliminate the noise

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

I fixed my problem, it ended up being the amp. I picked one up on ebay LKQ for $150.

My problem was buzz from all speakers (can only hear it at low volume) only when the car was running. No buzz from any speakers when the engine wasn't on.

rockyfeller

iTrader: (6)

Yea for sure this is a common problem, my car had the buzz too with the OEM amp. Dealer couldn't figure it out and said they'd probably just have to replace component by component. It was obvious they had no clue what was going on and that would probably cause multiple dealer trips. No thanks. I figured I'd be doing a full system overhaul after the warranty expired anyways.

Later when I did an aftermarket amp it did get better but it wasn't totally gone. So yes the OEM amp had a lot to do with it. But this wasn't good enough for me so I installed a ground loop isolator and worked like a charm, totally gone.

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

Yah, there's really not much in the way of doing diagnostics on the stereo system to isolate a buzzing sound. It'd require some sophisticated test equipment, basically would have to inject an RF signal into the headunit with like a 1khz tone modulated onto it and then pick it up at the output of the headunit and feed it into a distortion analyzer and see if the OEM headunit was operating within it's distortion specs which aren't published lol .. then test after the amp.. for the same

I checked my grounds first since that was cheap, then went with the amp since others seemed to get it to work by replacing the amp.

csmeance

Same issue here but I also get an RPM related Whining sound that disappears once I have driven the car for more than 20 minutes. Also my internal CD changer appears to not work whenever it pleases I've been looking on ebay for a replacement amp and haven't found one yet.

Slpr04UA6

^see post #6. I bought a used amp and it died within weeks!
Then I heard of the website that fixes them.

It might be worth it to just have yours repaired.

I was told they (carstereohelp.com) rebuilds the amp from the bottom up.

mzilvar

iTrader: (3)

My problem was very similar sometimes, if I left the car sitting for a long time when I started it up I would have a lot of static in all of the speakers that was matched to the RPMs of the engine.

After a while it would fade out to where you couldn't really hear it anymore, unless you turned the volume down to 1 or 2 or so and then you could hear the static in the speakers.

I had no static at all when the engine was off, it only did the above when the engine was running.

Probably worth it, it's $150 to send your amp there, I paid the same for one off ebay that was pulled from a junked car.

Slpr04UA6

^yeah, they must've raised the price! I paid $125 over a year ago. Still works great!



Csmeance-the company is near Orlando. I shipped mine, repaired in a day, shipped back. All within one week! You could drop it off, if you wanted. They also repair headunit's, but somethin like $395! My CD player has been non functional for awhile. I have talked to "Martin" (guy who does/did all the navi swaps, harness's, etc......) he said if I removed the radio, he would fix CD player for $100. He is also on that side of Florida.

chefboyardee

I wish there was just one thread on this- seems a lot of people are having this problem. I had the same issue and figured out the cause last night. It is indeed the amplifier. Specifically, the small 5mm capacitors in the amplifier. That also explains why the issue is temperature dependent for some people (bad caps get worse when very hot or cold).

You can fix this yourself if you're handy with a soldering iron. It took me an hour or two and the parts would have cost less then $20 had I not already had them. I'll make a howto if anyone wants me to.

chefboyardee

I posted the howto here:

https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-b...volume-922588/

Hope it helps!

Legend2TL

My 2005 TL (Original owner, 6MT, OEM stereo) has the buzzing, it's too cold to mess with it now.
In the spring, I'll take out the stock amp and look for bad capacitors in the power supply.
My guess is the amp's power supply filtering has some bad components (most likely capacitors since it's rare for inductors to go bad).

EDIT: Just found the great repair procedure for caps in the amp!!
https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-a...volume-922588/

My CD/DVD player failed on the OEM head unit and I bought a used one on LKQ, which had very nice condition head units for reasonable prices.
IIRC the thin kapton ribbon cable on the laser head for the DVD player fails and is impossible to replace.