[chavez]

I have a MS-8 with Technic's harness in my 09 E90. Everything works great until winter time when the weather goes below 20 F and the car is parked outside. When I start the car I won't have any sound. After driving around for about 10 minutes then sound would come back. If I park the car in the garage where it is about 45 F and drive out to temperature below 20 F then the audio would still work fine. Anyone know what is causing this problem?

[longnvu]

seems like the amp have bad solder joints

[ctuna]

Or maybe the battery is suffering from the cold.
I wonder if the IBS is kicking in an limiting what gets
turned on .

[KSP]

Originally Posted by ctuna

Or maybe the battery is suffering from the cold.
I wonder if the IBS is kicking in an limiting what gets
turned on .

+1 on the battery. I've been having exactly the same problem this week here in Chicago. I know my battery was on it's last legs, and I just replaced it a couple hours ago. I was charging it each morning until I had time to replace it, and it was consistently under 12V and around 40% capacity even after 30 mile drives the night before. After charging in the morning, I would get sound right away but after leaving work this week it would take 5 minutes or so to kick in. I'm pretty sure the new battery will take care of the problem.

[chavez]

My car has been parked in my garage all day and I just checked the voltage with a multimeter and it showed 12.20V. Is that normal or is that low? I don't have any starting issues or other battery related issues that I know of.

[ctuna]

You need to be careful when you measure it. You should leave
the hood open lock the car and come back and measure it later
as the moment the car awakes there will be a .5 amp drain on the
battery which will drop the voltage. (unlocking the car takes it out of
sleep mode )I think that 12.2 is on the low side.
I would take a measurement on it at the end of the day about a half
hour after you have locked it then one in the morning . I would also
try putting a charge on it overnight with a intelligent battery tender
such as a ctek 3300 or better and see how it acts. If your battery is
about 6 years old that's about as long as they last under normal conditions. slow cranks are an indication but that could be because of cold temps to , to some degree. I would also check your engine on alternator voltage to. To save your battery its always better to lock the car.

[bmw325i]

12.2 also seems low to me. It should be at least 12.6 or higher. My battery has been giving me some problems lately with the colder weather. Here's what I am replacing it with.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...%5BIgnore%5D=1

[taibanl]

Anything above 12.0 is normal/within spec

[hoonywise]

I just did an aftermarket head unit, MS-8 swap with my L7 system. The day after I finished the install (and after the battery was disconnected for 4-5 consecutive days), Chicago weather had a huge dip.

My headunit did not come on the day after installation, while it worked perfectly the day before. I thought it was bad power connection, and planned to rip open the car the weekend after to check switched 12v and constant (from battery).

I just continued driving for about 10 min, and voila! The headunit came on in the middle of driving in the highway.

I am thinking my battery is dying. I mean, when I try flashing the car for about 15 min (BB flash), low battery sign came on. This is with everything turned off!

[chavez]

Replaced the battery over the weekend and the radio came on when I started the car after parking outside all day today, but it was 23 degree F outside so don't know for sure if the problem has been resolved.

[KSP]

Sound took a couple minutes to come on again today after the car was sitting outside all day. Temp was around 15F. I'm thinking maybe the relay on my HiFi wiring harness is sticking due to the cold. I'm going to swap the relay out when I get a chance and see if that takes care of it.

[paul223]

I have same issue with JBL MS8, in cold temps it does not work. But couple mins of driving, it starts working. Quicker way I figured out is to switch audio source couple time, radio to aux to radio to aux, it starts working.

[chavez]

My battery wasn't the problem. I finally drove my car this week after the battery replacement. Yesterday when I left the office it was 8 degrees. Drove for 25 minutes and the audio never came on. Today when I left the house the audio came on fine, but when I left the office it was 20 degrees and the audio didn't come on for about 15 minutes. What is wrong with the MS-8?

[KSP]

I'm going to keep a voltmeter in my car so I can check it the next time it happens. The plan is to check the voltage at the MS-8 remote in terminal to see if the relay is switching over properly. If there is voltage present at the rem in terminal, then the MS-8 is the problem, if not it's the relay at the wiring harness.

[chavez]

KSP, did you have a chance to test it yet?

[KSP]

Yes I finally got around to it last night after leaving work. What I saw was the voltage going from ~14V to 0V and back at the REM in terminal of the MS-8 every couple seconds. I also saw the light on my alpine amp going on and off as well, which is fed from the REM out of the MS-8. Best guess at this point is the relay coil is bad and can't hold its switch closed, at least until it warms up. By now, I can guess almost exactly how long it will take the sound to come on based on the outside temp.

I ordered a new relay and should have it installed around the middle of next week.

[jguff423]

I have the same problem. I have an Audison Bit One. I just assumed the aftermarket gear's operating temperature may not be as low as the factory was. Thought it kicked on once it reached a safe temperature. I could be totally off on this.

[KSP]

I replaced the wiring harness relay last Thursday, and while I had everything apart I ran new 18awg remote wires from the relay directly to the MS-8 and my 2 amps. I previously had the remote out of the ms-8 feeding the 2 amps, and was using 22awg wires. So far, so good.

It was about 12F leaving work today and everything kicked on immediately. The real test will be the next time it's below 0.

[chavez]

KSP, could you please explain exactly what you did and how to do it? I am not that experienced when it comes to something like this. Thanks.

[KSP]

Originally Posted by chavez

KSP, could you please explain exactly what you did and how to do it? I am not that experienced when it comes to something like this. Thanks.

Sure. First, I replaced the old relay on Technic's harness with a new one. You can get them anywhere, but I got this one from amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P61E36

The pins on the relay are labeled with numbers, so just keep them the same when swapping it out. And just because I wanted to rule everything out and I didn't want to have to take everything apart again, I ran new thicker gauge remote wires directly between the relay output (pin 87) and the ms-8 & amps. Previously I had one wire from the relay going to the remote in on the ms-8 and two wires from the remote out going to the amps. The ms-8 likely has its own internal relay between the rem in and rem out. I haven't noticed any issues with the ms-8 and the amps coming on at the same time.

That being said, the relay I replaced from Technics harness looked fine and tests as working at normal temps so I can't be sure that was the problem. Simply going to thicker remote wires may have helped some as well as not using the ms-8 remote out. You could try that first before getting a new relay. I'm sure we'll have a few more really cold days to test it out.

[KSP]

Possible simple fix found on diymobileaudio: unplug the display unit from the ms-8. I'm going to try this if it does it again. My display is hidden in my glove compartment anyway, and I don't really need it for anything. I guess the theory is the display unit doesn't start working until it warms up a bit, and having it plugged before then in causes the ms-8 to not fully start up.

[chavez]

Mine is plugged in and in the trunk. Will try disconnecting it when I get home this weekend. Hopefully it will solve my problem.