Thread: Engine Noise due to ground loop or amp?

Here's an update on my situation:

The Cuspid amp was taken out. To give you an idea of how bad it was, here's what I experienced with it:

-When flicking the right turn signal, the speakers would pop everytime it made the "ticking" noise
-When flicking the left turn signal, the speakers would pop on the first "tick" but not after every tick after that.
-The engine whine was very loud, but could be washed out by increasing the volume.
-The underlying engine noise was loud, but not as loud as the whine.
-Speakers would crackle and pop intermittently.
-When pressing the brake, the speakers would pop. When letting go of the brake, the speakers would pop again but just not as loud.
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So Circuit City took out the amp and installed a new 4 channel Sony Amp I got from AADeals.com. Here's what happened:

-Circuit City told me it would take about 5 minutes to swap out the Cuspid amp for the new Sony one.
-5 minutes became 1.5 hours and they said bring it back tomorrow when they can devote some serious time to the problem.
-The next day I dropped off the car at Circuit City. They called me back a few hours later and told me the problem is that 3 of the channels are blown and that was why they were having trouble getting the sound to work.
-I was ****ed off needless to say. So, I told Circuit City to take out the Sony Amp.
-I went to the shop, bought a new Bazooka 4 channel amp from Circuit City and had them install it. Everything sounds great and I'm loving the Bazooka amplifer.
-Unfortunately, I spent 200 dollars on the Bazooka amp, but at this point I was so ****ed off and tired of driving back to Circuit City all the time.
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Now I was stuck with a broken Sony Amp. So I called AADeals:
-One the first call, the rep told me that someone would call me back. This was Monday.
-No one called me back by Thursday, so I called them again. The rep told me that someone would call me back within a few hours.
-No one called me back Thursday, but they did call me this morning.
-The rep told me that they will not return my money, only authorize an exchange. After several minutes of talking, they still said that they will not refund my money due to company policy.
-So I agreed to send them back the broken amp and exchange it for a new one.
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What a looong ordeal. But in the end, I have an impressive new Bazooka amplifer and will have a new Sony Amp. I wish I could have gotten my money back, but I'll probably sell it anyway and hopefully get $110 back.

It's been very frustrating, but a good lesson to learn so hopefully you guys starting out can learn from it.

-Matt

return the bazooka amp and have 'em swap in the sony again. 30 days return policy....and it shouldn't have taken 'em more than 5 minutes to realize the problem was blwon channel leads. Most likely they were covering up for their mistake of running the signal wires too close to power wires. Ionno though, i work for Circuit City, my CC is great with installs, never have issues at all and we're knowledgeable, but that issue sounds more like an install issue....but swapping amps isn't complicated at all.

They said the reason why it was taking so long was because they couldn't figure out why sound was only coming out of one channel. So when I came back, the original guy who did the first Cuspid amp install worked on it and figure out the Sony amp was blown.

I asked him how he knew and he said he put both amps side by side and installed one after the other.

I trust this guy too and I have 100% confidence in Circuit City..well at least the guy who did the original install and the Bazooka.

EDIT: After driving around a bit with the Bazooka amp, I'm starting to like it more and more. If I do give it up, it's gonna be hard to do.

well, it's not really hard to check the continuity.....sorta odd....

It's been really frustrating bringing my car back to Circuit City time after time. Not to mention I don't have much faith in AADeals now. I really really really wish I could have returned it for my money back, but looks like I'll be stuck with a new amp for the time being.

Are you aware that if you paid by a credit card or debit card w/ visa/mc logo you can simply call up your bank/card company and tell them the merchandise arrived damaged. You had to buy one localy to save time and now the orginal company wont take the "defective" merchandise back. File a dispute claim saying you wish to return the item because it was defective and they wont allow it.

99.99999% of the time, no matter what the problem, your credit card company is going to award the dispute to you because they want you to be happy. Any company that takes credit cards is aware.

Trust me, just call them and file a dispute and give them the details. Tell them you just want a refund and they wont give it.



On a side note, the same applies to going out to eat. If you go to a resturant and you pay by credit card and you decide that the meal simply wasn't up to par (even after you paid for it) you can dispute the charge and you will win. Sounds stupid, but in their eyes the consumer is always right no matter how wrong they are. Any company that values their customers sees this and work with you to resolve any issues you may have.

I had no idea you could do that.

When I called them up they said it's company policy to not refund on Sony merchandise. The only thing they will do is an exchange for the same product which is what I ended up doing because I thought I was out of options.

I really wish I knew about this before I returned the broken amp.

I litterally just had the same problem about 20 minutes ago. Im not sure who installed my amp, because the car was a gift. who ever did didn't ground it properly, find where your amp is, follow the black ground wire to where ever it connects to the body of the car, remove that screw, where the connector makes contact, scratch it up so that there is metal to metal contact. most likely whoever installed the amp left the paint underneath the connection, and it is grounded, but not grounded properly.

I just did that to my ground, and it works perfectly now, no noise except for when the car starts up it sounds like a laser gun fight for about .3 seconds. i really wish it would last longer so i can figure out which side of the car wins.