Thread: Radio skips when I hit pothole.

So I grounded my car out today trying to install this new 3 prong led switch for my fans. I have a cable from the battery(positive) to the switch and from the switch to the fans with a fuse in the line. I put the power cable and the ground for the light on the wrong prongs, so instead of returning the power to the fans, it went to the body. I automatically heard a buzzing noise coming from the ecu area (beneif the dash). My car wasn't starting at the point. After I cussed myself out for 5 minutes, I tried to crank her over one more time and she started right up. Wired the switch up correctly and drove it home. I noticed on the way home that my radio was skipping everytime I hit a pothole. AND also my speedometer would drop to zero when I hit a pothole as well. It would jump right up after but it does it everytime. Also when I bring the car up to 45-5k rpm (much vibration due to engine mounts) the radio skips, speedometer drops, temp signal jumps all over the place and my headlights flash. What the hell did I fry when I grounded my car out? And how can I fix it?

that sounds like a loose ground wire somewhere possibly.

Yep, bad ground. Go over all the main grounds inside and out.

Disconnect and wire brush all the ground contact points even if they seem tight, when you ground out the car and see sparks a lot of the contact points get burnt. Also check all fuses inside and out.

Hmm..Makes sense. I put power to all grounds so I know they must have sparked/heated up. I'll clean up my grounds one by one and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your advice guys.

This morning my rpm signal wasn't working until after 10 minutes of driving then it kicked back on. My radio only skipped about twice and the speedometer only dropped dead like once, without hitting a pothole.

Question: You think a ground cable would heat up so fast that it would snap?

It should not snap but check for melted wire installation.

Well, all the skipping stopped, and the gauges jumping around stopped as well. I didn't even check my ground yet. Noice!