[recian]

On my way to work yesterday as I was pulling in my radio audio went out. I thought.. I turned it all the way up and noticed there was still audio but it was watery and full of static. Even radio stations I know can be picked up with no antenna here in town are the same way. I unplugged the radio and plugged it back in figuring it may help. It did to a point. Audio levels are back to normal but it still had static.
So far, I took my antenna out and cleaned out the socket since it was raining and the socket was full of black water. It worked for a little while and as I started driving it went out again. I've started to notice driving and parking the car it'll work for about 30 seconds after the car is started then get full of static. The AUX and CD work fine so I suspect it's in the antenna system or the fact that it corrects itself when the car is turned off I'm thinking it's in the head unit's antenna input.
Anyone have any ideas or had this happen?

 

[i68k]

it could be the headunit failing, but seems youve already covered the basics and narrowed it down. if the cd and aux works good, we can assume its not speaker wiring. usually its not the radio, but they are known to crap out if you have the stock oem headunit. there's not much to the antenna, have you check the entire length of the wire, its possible its coming loose behind the fender. check the whole wire is case it was rubbing a panel, it couldve stripped the wire causing it to touch ground. also, make sure there's no interference, like no cellphone near it, no computers, no telephone lines above you, etc. doesnt sound like your charging system, but check your battery voltage motor on & off, make sure your terminals are tight and ground good. its known that when the charging system is failing or has bad connection, any random component will lose voltage.

 

[recian]

Later today i'll take the head unit out and check resistance from the antenna to the fender mount. If it's not perfect i'll look into a loose connection then I'll check either end continuity to ground and make sure there's no continuity there

 

[JudoJohn]

you don't say what year car, or if it's the factory unit. my factory radio went bad at about 65K miles. first, left channel didn't work. i could live with that. then it got to the point where the volume wouldn't c hahnge when i turned the knob. then i ordered a new cd player/radio from Crutchfield.