RADIO NOISE

[franey]

After much discussion here recently regarding radio noise, i was by my Audio repair shop this week and brought up the question of car radio noise to the owner. He has 29 years of experience in all types of electronic repairs and 4 years in AIR FORCE as a repair tech, He never looked up from his bench, HIS REPLY WAS " YOUR TALKING ABOUT A CADILLAC ARN'T YOU", I just laughed and asked him how he new, he said his wife had at one time owned a 97 sts , and a friend had a Deville with the problem. HE said that 99 percent of all radio noise comes from poor grounds. The cars did not have the problem when they are new only after some age is put on the car , now what changed , he said it is the grounds, from corrosion, loose grounds, and paint, yes paint . HE recommends removal of ground bolts and grinding down to the bare metal at the ground point. He even suggested that you remove the antenna and grind the paint off under the bezel or do it inside the trunk, in his opinion antennas are the worst offenders. Now for finding which ground or grounds , he recommends the fist technique, or shake tecnique, when noise appears either thump or shake different componets until you find the component that changes the pitch of the noise. His friends was a ticking or clicking noise , turned out to be the fuel injectors, causing the noise , he tracked down the grounds and ground and cleaned them,seperated wires where he could and wrapped individuall wires for the injectors, once he finised this, NO MORE NOISE. I know this sounds like a pie in the sky find and fix, but hey , he is the only one that has appeared to have fixed the radio noise, Just might be worth a try. Remember how many of us have had a poor ground at the battery, and the problem was your radio clock would not work. TAIL LIGHTS THAT Have a mind of their own, again ground problems inside of the socket, who would have thought. Just might be worth a try. GOOD LUCK

[Marika]

My old SLS, had it's engine mounts replaced by the previous owner when the car only had about 20,000 miles on it. Seems that the bad engine mounts were causing a problem with the car starting and interfering with the grounds of the car and loads of noise in the radio. Once they were replaced, no more problems.

[stefank]

Franey, Marika,

thanks a lot for sharing this information. I will remove and clean all ground connections I come across whenever I work on my car from now on!

Stefan