Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for mechanics and DIY enthusiast owners of cars, trucks, and motorcycles. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I recently bought a 06 Chevy Impala. The radio unit does not turn on (no lights, no sound, no response). There is no voltage at the harness.
But there IS voltage at the fuse. So the break must be somewhere between the fuse and the radio.
How do I determine where the break is without tearing apart the entire dash?
There are two possibilities, in my experience, either:
1) the wire is broken in the first few inches of the connector - either end and pulling on it or chopping it back may show you which.
2) the wire has broken inside the harness - for this, there is usually some sign of damage at some point.
If it is not (1) above, then the easiest solution is to run a new wire from the supply point to the device, note if this supply also powers other devices then connecting to both free ends may solve that issue as well...
The time and effort in opening the harness is not worth it unless there is significant damage that has to be repaired...
Edit: the other thing to check is that you have 12v both sides of the fuse - visually checking is fine but the element can fracture and the fuse looks good but isn't, so checking with a meter is necessary.
While I am not at all versed in electronics, a guy who was told me they have a method they use to find an issue in most any electronics. This same method would work with just wiring alone. The simple method is to divide in half. What I mean by this is, you have a length of wire. The bad spot is somewhere within the length of wire. Find the approximate center of the wire and check the continuity from the center to one end. If you have continuity, check it from the center to the other end (just to prove to yourself you aren't going crazy). From the center, you divide the wire in half again, starting from the center of the 1/2 you're working on out to the end and to where the center you just tested from is. One side or the other is going to be dead. Continue dividing the wire by 1/2 until you find your break. Now, you aren't physically dividing it, just testing 1/2 at a time. All this takes to do this is a multimeter which will read continuity, time, and patience.
