fixing a car radio

It's old, but it works. Mostly.

I finally got around to fixing the wonky volume control for my car radio. It's one of those pretend-analog things where there is an actual potentiometer in there, but the signal it controls is digital. Mine was in a state where it worked, but turning it in either direction could increase or decrease the volume and it was really difficult to land it on a specific volume.

The fix? DeoxIT D5. I've been mentioning that a lot recently, but yeah, it worked here. I pulled off the volume knob, gave a spritz in there, turn-turn-turn back and forth, spritz again, repeat. Knob back on, done. Now it works like it's supposed to.

Part of the problem with this control to begin with is that it's a pseudo-infinite adjust, which means a smooth feel when turned. If it had detents, then the problem never would have happened. And, wouldn't you know it, the knob on right side for choosing a radio station has detents. No problems with that one. I rest my case.

My car radio is not at 100%. Only 3 of 4 speakers work due to age. The front two work, but the driver's side rear never has since I got the car. I've literally been debating for years whether to replace the rear shelf speakers or not. Every time I consider doing it, the decision is always nope, not worth the effort. And that's due to the first car I ever owned. More on that in a moment.

The CD player stopping working a while ago. It will take a disc, but it's a tossup whether it will read or not. Also, it's a tossup whether the unit will actually eject the disc. The last time I had a disc in there, I honestly thought it was stuck, but after trying over and over again, the disc finally ejected. I've not put another disc in there since. Yes, I could take the whole radio out, take it apart, clean the lens and lubricate the mechanism. But like with the rear speakers, it's not worth the effort.

Everything else on the radio still works, including an AUX IN that I never use.

Do I even listen to the radio? Rarely, and that's the first reason I've not bothered replacing the rear speakers.

The second reason is that my very first car, a Civic from the early '80s, only had two front speakers. The car didn't have any radio originally, and the guy who sold it put in the cheapest AM/FM radio-with-cassette deck he could find, slapped in two speakers in the door panels and that was it. I was happy to have any way to listen to music in the car at the time.

The third reason is that me and car radios do not get along.

For that first car I had with that cheap AM/FM cassette deck thing, it never had a problem. Never "ate" tapes, and the radio always worked. True, it wasn't that loud, but it was good enough. It was just about every car radio I had after that which developed a problem or two or more.

Many moons ago when I was making regular trips from Vermont to Connecticut, I would be driving on I-91 and listening to the radio because there was music there I didn't have on tape. I could actually gauge how far along the trip I was because of one station I'd listen to for many miles. Once that station was out of range to where it was just static, I knew that I'd driven a little more than half the trip. And that kind of sucked because there weren't any other stations to listen to until I got to my destination. But that was how things were at the time in the long-ago 1990s.

What I've learned over the years is not to mess with car radios. If I try anything fancy, there will be problems. Just like car radios of the past, I've had CD players stop working and speakers that fuzz/blow out. And if I try to get fancy and connect something, be it wired or wireless, something will go wrong.

It absolutely does not matter how careful I am with a car radio. It could be absolutely bone stock without a single modification done to it, I could clean it regularly, never play it too loud and be super careful with it. Again, doesn't matter. Something on it will bust at some point. And it will be something decidedly annoying.

That first car radio spoiled me just because it always worked, even as cheap as it was.

What I've learned over the years with car radios is that if the radio and two front speakers work, I'm good.

I fixed the volume control. The front two speakers still work. The radio still works. I'm good.

Published 2025 Sep 7