Good evening. I have a fairly simple question for my first time here and my first attempt working with car audio.
I have a 1994 Saturn SL2 that I recently paid a shop to install a JVC KD-R300 stereo with a kit into the car. The stereo worked perfectly for about two weeks. After that whenever I went to pop in the faceplate and use the radio, it would sometimes take 2-3 minutes before any sound was produced. The stereo looked as if it was working perfectly. All of the settings work and I could change inputs just fine, but no sound. Randomly the sound would then cut back on after a bit of time. Sometimes it worked right off the bat, sometimes not.
After a few days of this, the sound never came back. I plugged it in one day and nothing even after 20+min. I called the shop and they told me the speakers were likely dead and causing the stereo unit to go into a "safe" (forget what they called it) mode where it wouldn't output any sound and he said I needed all new speakers (of course). But the stereo does not give any visual indication of this.
I then noticed the next day that my driver side door had been leaking front the top where it meets the body. And that the water was leaking directly onto the grill of the front left speaker. I then took notice that whenever I plugged the faceplate in, the front left speaker would pop and no sound.
Sorry for all of that lead-up. So my question is: is the "safe mode" the shop guy mentioned real, or is he just trying to get more cash? Would one of the speakers being damaged from water cause the entire unit to not output sound, or is there a more likely reason? If it could be the damaged speaker, would simply unplugging the speaker itself (not the cord from the back of the stereo unit, but the speaker itself) rectify this issue as a way to test? Or would an open circuit on the stereo be just as bad as a broken speaker? Thanks.
