Radio stays on after opening the door - Fix Experiment

Electronic systems, stereo and Holden iQ, wiring, it all goes here....
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smwalker
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Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:44 am
Location: Azusa,CA

Radio stays on after opening the door - Fix Experiment

Post by smwalker »

I have been quietly gathering used drivers door latches from people who have experienced the dreaded "Radio won't turn off when I open the door problem." In just about every case once I get the latch and bench test it it seems to work fine. This has lead me to believe the issue may be in the connector that is at the latch. Another possibility could be broken wires in the door boot but the sporadic nature of some reports rules this out. In other words once wires break they don't usually make contact again. And in all these cases the instalation of a new GM latch fixes the problem where if it was broken wires it would not have been fixed.

Confirm Issue with door test - Do the process of turning off ignition, removing key with the radio on and opening the door. Try it 10 times, write down how many times it fails to turn off the radio. THis will give us our baseline.

First Attempt - Use Contact cleaner on terminals.
Directions: After removing the door panel unplug the connector on the door latch, spray in contact cleaner to the latch terminals and the plug terminals., let it sit and work for 10 minutes. Ater 10 minutes respray both areas. Plug it back in and perform the door test 10 times, write down how many times it fails to turn off the radio. If it works 100% of the time then we are done. If not keep going.

Second Attempt - If still not performing remove the door latch assembly from the door and physically clean the terminals. This part I am not sure about since there is an $80 terminal cleaning kit that comes with the correct size instruments to clean the face of the terminals and the pins, but for our experiment all we really can do is clean the face of the pins in the door latch using maybe a emery board or a piece of sand paper wrapped around a pic. It's pretty small space. And you should not even attempt to try and clean the female terminals as sticking the wrong size item in there could damage them.

IF you go through both of these steps and it does not work, the next thing I would check is the wires in the door boot to make sure they are not broken. If those check out then I would feel good about condemning the micro switch in the latch.

Contact Cleaner Choices:
There are many choices for electrical contact cleaner. For this application we want more of a cleaner/lubricant as we want the lubricant to stay around after cleaning to help provide good electrical properties. Luckily there is a pretty cheap and readily available product for this. CDC 2-26 is a lubricant commonly sold at Home Depot in the electrical Aisle. Only about $4.00 for a small can. Link

If you have this problem with your Caprice give the steps a try and let us know if it works. Of course a new $60 latch from GM ususally fixes it as well but I think that is mostly just because you are installing clean terminals not because there was anything wrong with the micro switch in the latch.
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
ejf2461
Posts: 132
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:18 pm
Location: Indianapolis

Re: Radio stays on after opening the door - Fix Experiment

Post by ejf2461 »

I had the same problem in my 2013. It ended up being the wiring harness in the door. The Police Agency who owned it butchered it to install the lights on the mirrors when they installed they Police Equipment. New door wiring harness got me back in business and haven't had an issue since.
2013 Impala 9C1
2013 Caprice PPV 9C1 V8
smwalker
Administration Staff
Posts: 2201
Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:44 am
Location: Azusa,CA

Re: Radio stays on after opening the door - Fix Experiment

Post by smwalker »

Ejf, curious was your problem intermittent? Like some times it would work and sometimes not? Or just broken all the time?
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
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