Arg.  Instead of plowing into the tail-end of the jerk that cut me off yesterday, I am rewarded with the stereo system in my car, dying.

Why and what happened?  I’m still trying to sort that out.  But I do know that whatever DID happen to my car’s audio system, it happened when I had to get deep into the brakes to avoid a rather ‘rude’ driver.  Right then the radio cut.  I thought maybe a bad commercial break or something.   Looked down at the radio a few seconds later and… NOBODY HOME.

I finished my errands yesterday, with only the sound of the 24 valve 4.3L V8 to serenade me.  Now..  there is nothing wrong with the nice sound of a powerful V8 engine (OK.. 285 HP powerful… not too bad for a motor that 262 CID motor that idles like glass at 400 RPM, try that with your S***block Chevy! hahaha) .   At any rate.. BOSE dead.

I parked it in the garage this morning and took the ML to work.  It needed some gas (it ALWAYS needs some gas, powered by the same V8 engine, but pushing AWD and a brick of a body, it’s pretty harsh on the Premium fuel), but I didn’t want to spend the 1 hour commute to work listening to hushed sounds of wind and the expansion joints of the highway.

Upon returning home, I enlisted the assistance of my helper (aka son) and we took the rear end of the car’s interior apart.  The majority of the audio system is located back there so it seemed a good place to start.

Sadly, after checking both fuse blocks, and the fuse on the main audio amp (all good), I’m out of ideas for the quick-fix on the system.  Looks like I’ll have to get the special tools to remove the factory head unit and see if maybe the plug on the back of that came loose during braking.   I hope so…  sad if it happend, happy for me if I can fix it without spending $2500 for all new audio.  These factory systems are all CAN-BUS fiber optic networked.  Can’t just ‘toss in’ a new head unit.

Happy happy, joy joy.