My 2004 TL w/ nav has been experiencing strange problems with the audio system. For the past few winters, my audio system would fail to start during very cold conditions. Once the car warmed up and I restarted the car, everything would work fine. This winter was quite rough in Chicago, and there were multiple times when this happened. About two weeks ago this occurred, but this time I can’t get the radio to come back to life. After about 3 days with no sound, I changed the fuses for radio and ACC. I also disconnected the car battery, waited five minutes, and reconnected. The navigation reset as expected, but the audio still doesn’t work. The only change is that now my anti-theft light is blinking but it doesn’t give me the option to enter the code.

To clarify what I mean by the audio system not working, here is what I’ve noticed: no sound from radio or CD, Bluetooth sound doesn’t work (phone will still pair), buttons on radio don’t work (but I can eject CDs), steering wheel controls can still change the radio station, navigation works fine, the ‘audio’ button on the navigation does nothing.

My assumption is that I have a bad connector or capacitor on the radio system. I’m looking for some advice on what my next steps should be. I’m considering buying a new radio from a local scrap yard (around $200), but I’m concerned that if it is a bad connector or something else exterior to the radio unit that this will be a waste of money and effort. Any thoughts on this approach? The dealer wants $120 just to diagnose the problem.

To give a little further information on my situation, my car just hit 100k miles and I’m starting to notice some issues that have me seriously considering getting a new car. I’m at the point where I probably need to invest about 2-3k in the car over the next year (105k maintenance, tires, breaks, odd shifting/clunking noise from front right side, radio problem, etc). I’m worried this car will start to nickle’n’dime me, so my plan is to fix the radio and sell the car.

Thank you in advance for any feedback!

 

Try pulling fuse #7 for one minute then replace it and see if it asks for the radio code.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but that didn't work. It reset the nav but the radio still wouldn't prompt for the code.