[drosophila]

Hi all.

First time posting. I've read through the GROM audio posts and ordered one and started installing it this afternoon. Everything was going great until I reconnected my car's battery. I've never installed anything on my car before so I'm hoping I just missed a step somewhere along the way.

First, I have a 2005 Mazda 3i, remote keyless, and the stock cd player/head unit.

I followed the instructions here: http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=101973.0

Disconnected the battery (and here's where I'm wondering if I was supposed to do something else because all I did was unscrew the nut at the negative terminal, and lift up the cord), pulled off the trim, pulled out the head unit. I didn't disconnect the antenna or the power cords to the head unit, just plugged in the cord from the GROM unit. Had everything set up as described in the walkthrough post, but when I reconnect my battery, turn the key, no nice friendly "HELLO" from the head unit, nothing. Turn the power button, nothing. Also, my remote keyless entry no longer works, though the power locks, windows, a/c, flashers, etc do, and the car starts. All the dash gauges seem like they're resetting each time I've done this, what am I doing wrong??

Is there a proper way to "reconnect" a battery, or did I just royally screw myself??

Thanks.

 

[icspots]

While I've never heard of a grom unit causing a problem like this I'd say to unplug it and see if the problem persists.

 

[drosophila]

Just tried doing that, head unit still seems dead. I wanted to see if anything else seemed odd, so just drove it around the block a couple times. The trip odometer keeps resetting itself everytime I turn it on or off (the mileage number is right though). Also some of the dash gauges are locking in place after I turn off the car. The car is also idling a little weird, revving up and down every few seconds.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[icspots]

Super weird. Not that I think this is necessarily a problem but I'd check to see that all the fuses in both fuse boxes are good. Beyond that I'd suggest pulling the grom and taking it to a dealer except you're well out of warranty by now.

I've never heard of anyone's car doing this after having the battery disconnected.... and no you did nothing wrong with that process from what you described.

 

[drosophila]

Do you mean I'm out of warranty because I tried the install?

One other thing, how do I know if a fuse is good/bad? And where are the boxes? Thanks, and sorry for naive questions, this is my first time doing anything like this.

 

[drosophila]

Nevermind about the fuses, found it. Getting to the passenger fuse box is a pain in the ass though. None of the ones I've checked so far look bad (Audio on both the engine and passenger fuse boxes, radio, cpu pwr, meter). It's getting too dark to see them so I'm going to give up for tonight. Are there any other fuses I should check, they're kind of a pain to get to and I don't want to mess up anything else if I can help it.

Thanks for you help.

 

[drosophila]

Thanks for the help and the power of the forums (found the problem described in a different post). Blew the "ROOM" fuse in the engine fuse box, swapped out with another one, the head unit lights up and my remote keyless works now!!! I'm going to try and install the GROM tomorrow, but any thoughts on how I could stop myself from blowing a fuse again when I try this tomorrow?

I've read of draining residual power in the car by pressing the breaks?? Does that make sense?

Thanks again.

 

[icspots]

No, no I meant you're out of warranty because you have a '05 model and it's '09 now...... well at least you're likely out of warranty. :lol:

Yes the passenger fuse box is a PITA to get to, though you can release the tabs and it will drop down for access. That ROOM fuse seems to blow out frequently for lots of people (crosses fingers), and I'm glad it was an easy fix.

Personally I don't unplug the battery when doing stuff like this (what can I say, I'm a rebel) and I've never had a problem. I would unplug the HU before plugging in the grom though. I don't know that draining off the extra power would do much for you... generally that's just in the capacitors for the airbag system, so I don't know why that would short the room fuse.

 

[drosophila]

Well, I retried the install this morning, and it went a lot faster. I didn't unplug the battery like you suggested, but I did unplug the head unit. Got the GROM installed, reconnected the head unit, and the fuse blew right away (the trip odometer went dark right after I did it). So I checked the fuses again, and again the ROOM fuse had blown, so replaced it, and it blew as soon as I put a new one in. I disconnected the GROM from the head unit (which is another PITA, why is it so hard to get that out?), replaced the fuse, and everything now works as it should.

So now, I'm back to square one, I'm going to contact GROM, but this seems a little odd.

Any other thoughts? Should I go with an audiolink or some other interface. The GROM sounds the best, but at this point I think I'd be ok with just an AUX in, and I hope this fuse blowing is just isolated to the GROM unit.

Thanks for your help.

 

[icspots]

That's just damned odd. :thinking: I would definitely get grom to swap out the unit and see if it happens with a new one just to rule out it being that particular module. They're pretty good about customer service, so I can't imagine you'd have a problem getting a replacement.

The question is if you get another one and it happens again is it specifically the grom that's causing it, or is it the port on your HU? If it's the port then an audiolink would theoretically have the same issue as it uses the same port. If you decide to just go with an auxiliary input then I'd recommend the AuxMod basic in this case as it uses the TAPE/MD slot on the HU.

 

[drosophila]

Well, GROM has been pretty helpful with emails thus far, I've sent in the unit and today they're shipping it back to me with a new circuit board installed. I'm going out of town this weekend so I'm hoping all goes smoothly this time around and I'll have more than a bunch of worn out CDs to distract me on the boring drive.

GROM's email suggests that I should not have disconnected the car's battery when I originally installed the GROM box, and their email says to not disconnect the battery when I install the new one they're shipping today.

This makes install slightly easier, and from the previous install, it seems the worse that can happen is I blow the ROOM fuse again (but at least this time I'd know what the problem is right away). But I'm wondering why disconnecting the battery would make any difference. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[Google]

Did u ever get this issue resolved?