Battery acts dead and Radio Goes Out

[Antharian]

About 3-4 times per month, when I go to start my car, nothing happens. The first times this happend, I thought the battery had died. When I replaced the battery, all was fixed. However, only 2 days after the first battery replacement, the same thing happened again.

When I detach the negative battery lead, and reattach it, all works again fine. The Radio also seems to be part of this same sympton. The radio will go blank, and the power will not go on to it. However, after removing and replacing the negative battery lead, the radio works fine again for several days before it stops working and needs the "battery" trick done.

Any ideas?

-Travis

[audtatious]

Clean the terminals. Trace to the ground points and clean those as well. Finally, make sure the alternator is charging properly.

[Antharian]

The terminals on the battery itself continually builds up a large residue. When I clean them, 2-3 weeks later, they are very built up again.

The alternator appears to be working correctly. I left my car at the airport and the large cargo planes kept setting the alarm off until the battery died. After the car was jump started, the battery charged back up perfectly. But still requires the weekly "remove the negative lead" trick in order to make the radio work and to let it start up.

It's almost as if by removing the negative terminal lead, some circuit is reset and the electrical system works fine.

-Travis

[audtatious]

When the radio goes dead, does everything else work OK? If this is the Bose system then it could well be something internal. Next time it happens, pull the radio fuse and reinsert it to see if it does the same thing as when you disconnect the battery.

[Antharian]

Pulling the radio fuse and replacing it has no effect. Any other thoughts?

[audtatious]

The reason I wanted to see if pulling the radio fuse would reset the radio is whether the problem was with the radio itself. Removing the fuse completely powers it down (similar to removing a batter connection). Since that did nothing, then I would assume the problem is with the negative teminal (assuming pulling the power cable does not fix it either).

I would consider replacing the ground cable and terminal itself.