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Car radio dead after replacing battery?

I have an 04 ford focus. My car died after stopping it for about 5 minutes. Tried jumping it twice...once with old cords, and again with new ones. Oh and...I reversed the polarity by accident the 2nd time.

I never noticed any signs of my battery dying before this occurrence. I replaced my battery myself and now my radio will not turn on. No other problems, all other lights, brake lights, blinkers, wipers, and auto locks still work. What could have happened? I checked all the fuses, and could see that they were still intact...do I need a new radio/cd player?

HELP!

~music-less in tx :[

Update:

Oh...and my car runs fine. I haven't had problems since replacing the battery except for the radio thing.

6 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Reversing the polarity of jumper cables can do a lot of damage to the electrical components. You said you checked all of the fuses and none are bad, you might of fried your radio. But before you replace it, after market stereos have a fuse on the back of the unit, not to sure about factory ones though. But more than likely if your stereo does not have a fuse on the back, its time for a new one.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    You may have caused a dead short in your cars system.Will your car start or does it just emit a clicking noise like the battery is dead?If so your starter may have gone out.This can happen without any warning.If you can, get a friend to get under your car and Gently tap

    the starter while you turn the key.It may start or act like it wants to.This same thing happened to me and that's what my mechanic friend told me to try,and I ended up replacing my starter.Or if you can get it to Auto-Zone and they will do a FREE diagnostic check and tell you what the problem is .Reversing the polarity probably didn't help.but try this and good luck.Let me know if this helped.

  • 1 decade ago

    If you pull the radio out of the dash a little way,there is usually an inline fuse on the hot wire going into radio.I doubt you ruined your radio.You more than likely blew the fuse in the line.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    MAybe a stereo with an anti theft. If the battery is removed, it requires a code to enable it again

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  • ?
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    you blew the fuse when you crossed the cables hopefully you didn't fried the whole system.

  • 1 decade ago

    bzzzzzzzzt short circuit

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