These days, it seems like you can’t drive down the road without seeing a car with loud music blasting out of its speakers.
And while that’s awesome to enjoy, it means that when your car stereo suddenly stops working, you’re left in silence.
This blog post will show you how to fix your Pioneer Car Stereo that has no sound so that you don’t have to deal with any more dead air!
What’s Causing the Sound Issue?
There can be multiple reasons behind your pioneer car stereo to stop producing sound. Here are the reasons that may have caused it-
Faulty Wiring
The wiring could have been damaged by a short circuit or too much wear. Or you may have a loose cable connection to or from the stereo to the speaker. Either way, faulty wire connections are the major cause of this issue.
If you did everything right while installing the system, it can still become a wiring issue due to the vibration of the car or road bumps after a few years of regular driving.
Blown Out Fuse
The car stereo and speakers have respective fuses that can be blown out due to increased power draw. You will have to check the fuses first before going any further as this is an easy fix if you know what size and type of fuse your model requires.
If the car stereo fuse blows out, the stereo won’t work at all. But if the speaker fuse is gone, your stereo should work fine but without any sound.
Speaker Gone Bad
A blown-out speaker will be the cause of no sound. You can try replacing it with a new one if you have an extra or if your model has a user-replaceable speaker.
In most cases, this is not something you will be able to fix yourself. So, make sure you bring your car stereo and speaker to a professional as soon as possible if this is what has gone wrong with it!
You Didn’t Program the Unit
Another common cause, especially with the newly installed head units, is that people forget to program the unit. You need to set the clock, go through the setup instructions, and program the cassette deck or CD player before you start using it.
You can also try reprogramming your car stereo if this was not done correctly during installation. This may be a good idea for Pioneer Car Stereo that gets no sound due to other issues as well.
Not all head units come preprogrammed. So, you need to be vigilant there in order not to mistake the problem to be a defective hardware issue.
Headphone Connected
You may have your headphone connected to the stereo which is causing the speaker to not produce sound. This is not a problem rather a mistake on your end. Check that before you go to the next section where we talk about the solutions.
Radio Antenna Gone Bad
This is a rare cause of the sound issue. But, you should know that it can also be one of them especially if your car stereo has an in-built FM antenna.
An easy way to check if this is the cause, simply plug in a flash drive or a CD drive to see if it plays music. If it’s playing music from external drives but isn’t producing any sound when you want to hear FM or AM radio, then it’s the antenna that may have gone bad.
How to Solve the Problem?
If you have an idea of what’s causing your Pioneer Car Stereo sound problem, you can move on to looking for a solution. Here are some ways that may help-
Unmute the Stereo
You can simply mute the sound on your car stereo and then unmute it. If that works, you have a problem with the MUTE button or its connection to the system’s wiring harness.
If this is not effective, try muting again while changing the volume up/down keys periodically for testing purposes. You can also turn off all the other controls on the unit until you get to the MUTE function.
Turn off Fixed PCM
If any other signals other than the PCM are selected as an input, your system won’t produce any sound. To check this, simply go to the system setup function, press the source button, then go to Audio select and find Fixed PCM.
Check if it’s turned on or off. It should be turned off for getting sound from the speaker.
Check the Fuses!
If the first two steps didn’t work, check the fuse in your car stereo to see if it is blown out or not. If yes, replace it with another one that is of the same amperage.
Replacing with the wrong amperage fuse will cause issues as well. So, make sure you pick the correct one while replacing blown-out fuse.
Check Your Cables and Wire Connections!
If you have a loose wire connection, it will make your car stereo get no sound at all or malfunction in some other way. So, tighten any loose connections first before going further with this process. If there are damaged cables even after checking the connection, replace them.
If your car stereo has a removable faceplate and you can remove it without moving any cables around the unit, take out the screws and pop off that plate. Check for anything suspicious there as well before putting everything back together again.
Output and Input Jack Swap
This is a common mistake made by new users. If you have connected the output jack to the input and vice versa, then your car stereo will not work at all or give sound in some other way.
Make sure that both jacks are correctly hooked up before going any further with this process of fixing no sound on the Pioneer Car Stereo.
Program Your Pioneer Car Stereo!
The final thing to try is reprogramming your Pioneer Car Stereo. This is especially important if this was not done correctly during installation.
If you did the previous steps and still there’s no sound coming out of your car stereo, it may be time to replace some hardware components like speakers or fuse holders. You will need a professional for that as well!
As a last resort before going to an authorized service center, you may try a full system reset on your head unit to see if that fixes the problem.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed six different ways to fix a Pioneer car stereo that has no sound or low volume. If you are still having trouble after reading our tips or if your problem is not listed here, let us know and we will be happy to help!
