UPDATE ON POST 21

so this morning all seemed fine

i got in the car and while it was warming up i started bumping some new tracks i DL off itunes

when out of no were the fuse blows to the amp...

no big deal, thats happened before. so i start driving to the car stereo shop to replace the fuse

well on the way there i noticed

the ABS and Check Engine light is on...

the speedometer is not working

the radiator FAN is constantly running

i check the code and it came up p0502 so i figured its nothing major and kept driving it.

well after hanging out at a buddies house i went to leave and now
the headlights are also out

anyone have any ideas were i should start?

ive checked the fuses to the headlights and nothing was burned out... and when i click them on i don't hear the relay sound

the only fuse that was out was under the coin tray and its for the cruise control and reverse lights... replaced that and it popped it again

note: on the headlights i am running the OEM jdm headlights and blasts

 

Did you put stereo equipment in yourself? Have you checked to see if wiring melted somewhere?

 

bad ground somewhere?

 

hum... melted wiring?

yes i did install it myself 4 years ago

i installed a 4 gauge power wire with a fuse holder and then ran it thru the car to a power block were i split it into two 8 gauge wire for the amp to power a sub

but i doubt that would melt even if i ran a 100watt fuse

and i didnt check the length of the wire but i didnt see anything wrong with the wire out at the back of the car...

if it melts will the whole run melt? or could it melt in a certain spot more then another spot? + if this did happen wouldnt i get a burning smell

 

as much as it will sux, im going to definitely have to go through the whole car to eliminate this possibility

 

Same thing happened to me last week when my battery started dying... All my lights started coming on, stereo sounded like ish, headlights flickering off and on... Then finally it wouldn't start but the batter still had a little juice left in it. Make sure the battery is making good contact to the positive and negative terminals, and make sure the battery is still good. How old is your battery?

 

Strongly advise you to check the reverse light switch on your transmission. I had similar malfunctions and some others as well on the impreza I used to have, and it turned out to be an intermittent short at that switch. It took tearing the whole car apart looking for sliced wires and such before we found the real problem. Subaru spiders the weirdest stuff into non-intuitive circuits on the body harness. Good luck!

 

If you wired the sub and amp through the car's electrical system, you most likely had some sort of short that ****ed the wiring all over the place.

When you run system you should run an entirely separate power line because **** like this happens. You should wire the power to the aftermarket stereo through it's own fuse separate from the rest of the car's electrical and power systems.

 

i thought this too but the battery is only about 2 months old... and when it was replaced the alternator was tested and passed

also the car keeps on starting and playing the radio with no problem

 

the power line is on its own run...

the head unit though... that was wired in using a harness adaptor and has been installed for 2 years.
but ill have to check all that out

again if i did smoke some wires wouldnt i smell it?

 

thanks!

subaru spiders? weirdest stuff into non-intuitive circuits? can you elaborate?

 

As far as smelling the burn, not necessarily. I blew my stereo equipment in one of my old cars and there was no smell, it was just enough damage to keep it from properly functioning.

Does the run have it's own fuse at the battery though? It should, but it's probably a bad/false ground that shorted somewhere which was also mentioned and is also in the same realm of thing I'm talking about. If any of your friends have a Fluke it'll really save you some time working out the issue. If any of them are big into Computer or Electrical engineering they probably will have one, you should enlist their help to troubleshoot.

He's saying that Subaru has designed the wiring (in the wiring harness that's all over the body of the car) to be a bit overcomplicated and "Spiderweb" different systems into each other in ways that are counter-intuitive.

 

hey thanks manhands!

yes i do have a multimeter

and yes the power wire to the subs does have its own fuse

but the HU is using the stock wiring harness with RCA's to the sub

door speakers are all stock

 

Ed keep in touch with me bro on this. Let me know if you get it figured out

 

yeah ill be heading over to jerry's in the AM if he has time... multimeter in hand

it was really looking like at worst case it was the speedometer gear in the tranny but now that the headlights went out im starting to really think something else is causing all this