Cannot use car radio when engine turned off

qetu1357

Bought a new pioneer car radio, had it fitted by Halfords.

Surprised to find that cannot use car radio when engine turned off. On all my previous cars, I could.

Rang Pioneer and they said that isn't a fault and you cannot use radio when engine turned off.

Am I mad or do others have the same?

Quentin

It won't be a faulty radio. Maybe halfords wired it to the wrong terminal.

You can solve it by wiring it direct to the battery ( ensure it has an inline fuse if you do this fix)

Strider590

There are normally two live terminals behind the radio, one is always live (lets call it wire A), the other is only live with the ignition on (wire . The normal way to wire them up is to wire A connected to the stereo, with wire B connected to a special connection for detecting whether the ignition is on, this way it will turn on/off with the ignition, BUT can still be turned on manually if required.

It sounds to me like Halfrauds didn't know what they were doing, it's unlikely that the stereo doesn't have the feature I mentioned. They should have used a conversion kit though, one which provides a car specific connector and makes the whole job very simple, but my GF had her stereo fitted by a main dealer when she bought the car and all they did was twist the wires together and wrap them in PVC tape (which i've later had to remove an reconnect with connector blocks).

pappa_golf

ignition off or key in accessory position ? , yes a radio will not/should not work with the ignition off , however most (lots) of cars have middle position on the ign switch called accessory , in this position the radio should work without the ign being turned on

Nasqueron

My old 206 you could use the radio for a period with the engine off (maybe 20 minutes?) but then it turned off and wouldn't come back on. My new Mazda 3 you can't.

neilmcl

^This. For obvious reasons it's there to prevent you getting a flat battery if you forget to switch the radio off.

qetu1357

pappa_golf wrote: »

ignition off or key in accessory position ? , yes a radio will not/should not work with the ignition off , however most (lots) of cars have middle position on the ign switch called accessory , in this position the radio should work without the ign being turned on

Thanks

Won't being on accessory setting really drain the battery?

neilmcl

qetu1357 wrote: »

Thanks

Won't being on accessory setting really drain the battery?

It really depends on how long you plan sitting there with your radio on.

wongataa

pappa_golf wrote: »

ignition off or key in accessory position ? , yes a radio will not/should not work with the ignition off , however most (lots) of cars have middle position on the ign switch called accessory , in this position the radio should work without the ign being turned on

My car radio will work with the ignition off and no keys in the ignition so it s not in the accessory position. The same is true with my girlfriend's car. It is quite normal for this to be true. My car radio will turn off on its own after a period of time if the engine isn't running to prevent battery flattening.

qetu1357

neilmcl wrote: »

It really depends on how long you plan sitting there with your radio on.

So a long time would use less battery than a short time?

qetu1357

wongataa wrote: »

My car radio will work with the ignition off and no keys in the ignition so it s not in the accessory position. The same is true with my girlfriend's car. It is quite normal for this to be true. My car radio will turn off on its own after a period of time if the engine isn't running to prevent battery flattening.

Thanks

This has been true for all of the cars I have had except this time when I've had a new radio installed in a car.