Hi. My 2014 ford focus radio keeps turning off by itself after just a few minutes. Driving or not

I have recently changed my battery and alternator due to them having faults and failing. 

Radio has not worked properly ever since. I have also done the battery reset on the car.

Thank you in advance 

Check the ignition fuse to your radio if it has 1 

What is the battery voltage measured at the terminals 30 minutes after parking ?

It might be that the battery is low on charge.  If you only do short journeys and have a lot of kit switched on it might not have topped up.  You can get battery tenders to top up the charge, but as unofix says, check the voltage that the battery is showing at the terminals.

The other thing that I don't know is how the security codes work on that year of Focus, does it require a code immediately when the power comes back on or is this a security timeout?

11 hours ago, Bainies said:

It might be that the battery is low on charge.  If you only do short journeys and have a lot of kit switched on it might not have topped up.  You can get battery tenders to top up the charge, but as unofix says, check the voltage that the battery is showing at the terminals.

The other thing that I don't know is how the security codes work on that year of Focus, does it require a code immediately when the power comes back on or is this a security timeout?

I had to put another new battery on yesterday so 100% not the battery.

Alternator is 2 weeks old

No it's not a coded one. 

Could it be the radio itself?

It had built in Sat nav but that no longer works at all GPS doesn't even show

11 hours ago, unofix said:

What is the battery voltage measured at the terminals 30 minutes after parking ?

I don't have an actual volt meter but I do have a clip on tester for battery and alternator and both seem fine

11 hours ago, MrRedman said:

Check the ignition fuse to your radio if it has 1 

If it was a fuse wouldn't that stop the radio coming on ?

Mine will come on but not for long then go off and on again then shutdown.

I can then turn it on again and it will repeat itself over again 

2 hours ago, Kronic said:

clip on tester for battery and alternator and both seem fine

what does "fine" mean ?

with out an accurate voltage measurement it's impossible to make any diagnosis.

Ignore the the fuse idea, they either work or they don't. In your case the radio comes on so it clearly works..

43 minutes ago, unofix said:

what does "fine mean" ?

with out an accurate voltage measurement it's impossible to make any diagnosis.

Ignore the the fuse idea, they either work or they don't. In your case the radio comes on so it clearly works..

Ok I'll try and get that checked Today and report back.

Thank you

3 hours ago, unofix said:

what does "fine" mean ?

with out an accurate voltage measurement it's impossible to make any diagnosis.

Ignore the the fuse idea, they either work or they don't. In your case the radio comes on so it clearly works..

Had it checked and it's reading 12.6 volts after resting and when running meter shows between 13.2 and 14.5

That's good, battery voltage looks fine so we can cross that off the list of possible causes.

I would say either you have a loose/bad connection to the radio, or that the unit itself is faulty. Either way it looks like you are going to have to take the radio out of the dashboard to investigate further.

1 minute ago, unofix said:

That's good, battery voltage looks fine so we can cross that off the list of possible causes.

I would say either you have a loose/bad connection to the radio, or that the unit itself is faulty. Either way it looks like you are going to have to take the radio out of the dashboard to investigate further.

Ok ill strip it down and investigate.

Thank you very much for you're help 

10 hours ago, Kronic said:

Ok I'll try and get that checked Today and report back.

Thank you

 

Ignore the the fuse idea, they either work or they don't. In your case the radio comes on so it clearly works.. Unifix don’t be arsey my suggestion is based on the the assumption the radio has a permanent live and an ignition live ? If so it maybe the ignition fuse has blown or this is where the fault stem’s from.

Are you suggesting that he has an intermittent fuse? 

11 hours ago, unofix said:

Are you surgesting that he has an intermittent fuse? 

No I was suggesting it may have an ignition fuse which has blown so it’s on the permanent live which is switching off after a few minutes .When I’ve fitted aftermarket radios they do have 2 fuses on some anyway I’m probably wrong 😑 

The Focus MK3/MK3.5 audio systems only have a permanent live power supply. The ignition status is fully controlled by CANbus communication.

Have you tried removing the SD card ?

I had a similar problem with a 2014 focus stereo, it would just boot up for a few minutes then turn off

Turned out to be faulty SD card for the satnav 

On 12/24/2021 at 8:06 PM, Enigma777 said:

Have you tried removing the SD card ?

I had a similar problem with a 2014 focus stereo, it would just boot up for a few minutes then turn off

Turned out to be faulty SD card for the satnav 

No I had not tried this. But have now and you are a life saver.

I removed the memory card and now all is working fine.

Thank you very much

3 hours ago, Kronic said:

No I had not tried this. But have now and you are a life saver.

I removed the memory card and now all is working fine.

Thank you very much

Glad it worked for you , saw the post and it reminded me of the same problem I had . 

 

 

 

 

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART GUYS.......I have had the same problem in my S-Max Titanium X Sport 2014 for the past 12 months. My radio unit kept resetting every 9 minutes, when i set the time for daylight saving etc, it reverted back to previous time when the radio reset. I couldn't set the time automatically via GPS as i wasn't receiving any signals. after reading this post i raced up to my garage and removed the SD Card, hey presto everything sprung into life, not a reset in sight

Hi hope it's OK to jump on this topic. 

I'm having a very similar issue with a 2011 mondeo titanium x it has the  MK4 Sony MP3 DAB Cd player. Just before my mot the stereo would go off randomly. Sometimes after 20 mins of driving sometimes not for weeks. The mot flagged a dodgy battery so had that replaced. Still the same issue though. Sometimes it can go off 10 times on a journey then other never. Batt reads 12.9 then 13.8 once ignition starts.  

Cheers 

Have you got SatNav ?

I'm not really sure why getting the car MOT'd would involve the battery ?

Hi no it doesn't have the sat nav. The car was in for service and mot and the bat was in need of changing. 

Thanks

It seems more like just a random poor connection. Maybe worth checking the connectors it the back of the radio unit. Also is there anything else being "piggy-backed" off the radio fuse like for example a dashcam ?