Hi all,

I have a 2007 MKIV Mondeo which has a Sony 6CD 2nd Generation stereo.

Since owning the car I have noticed that when the stereo is on and the
car hits a bump that the stereo would sometimes turn itself off.
Sometimes it will also turn itself on while driving. More recently it
fails to acknowledge the fact that the ignition is on and when you start
the car the display stays blank (i.e. does not show the time/date).
When you turn the stereo on it says "1 hour", i.e. is does not recognise
the ignition being turned on. Also recently the reception on AM band
has become overwhelmed by interference - which seems to switch itself on
and off.

So all in all I think my audio system has a wiring or perhaps an earth problem!

Today I removed the stereo from the car to inspect the wiring. The first
thing that I noticed was that there was a "yellow" wire just pushed
into one of the connector holes in the wiring loom that feeds into the
back of the stereo. The part of the loom (as far as I can tell) seems to
be the part that handles the signals from the controls on the steering
wheel. Tracing this yellow wire back it seems to come from a little red
box called "intelli-mute" "e11", which is presumably part of the audio
muting system related to phone call answering. Sadly however I did not
record which hole in the connector this wire had been jammed into and
this which pin on the back of the radio it was trying to serve.

Does anyone know what the purpose of this yellow wire is and where it
should be connected? I am hoping that this loose wire is the source of
my stereo power problems.

If it is not, does anyone have any ideas why my stereo may behave like this? Is it a known issue?

The stereo.

Steering wheel controls.

The yellow wire. This was loose and pushed into the bottom left black connector (which has another two wires in it, as above).

Where the yellow wire goes.

The unit that the yellow wire goes to.

Also, while exploring the wiring I noted a red and black wire near the
handbrake/under the cup holder (near the restraint controller) which has
been cut. Any idea what this wire does and if it is significant at all?

The cut black and red wire.

Any advice gratefully received.



Thanks



PJ

Hi again,

So I have been able to find a wiring diagram for the quad lock connector at the back of the stereo on the Ford Wiki.

All I need now is a wiring diagram for the "intelli-mute" box, so I know the function of the yellow wire.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

That box is the canbus decoder for aftermarket radios like Eonon.

The cut cable by the handbrake was most probably for the sensor that allows DVD radios to know you are stopped and therefore not breaking the law by watching films on the move.

You can safely ignore them if you have a standard radio fitted.

What I would do is strip out anything attached to that red box from the quadlock back and reinstate any loose blocks you may find of a similar design, that block with the 2 wires on looks like it's for the aftermarket kit as well as that block should have wires to slots 1,5 and 7 (that block is for phone sound through your speakers).

Stoney871, many thanks for the advice. I have now removed the canbus decoder and restored the car to the original stereo wiring, as you can see below:

The left overs...

So now the stereo wiring is a lot simpler.

Sadly however the radio still does not recognise when the ignition is on and still comes up with "1-hour". The radio also does switch itself off randomly when driving and the AM signal is still overwhelmed by electrical noise. So i summary I still have the same problems as before, but less wiring to worry about.

Any suggestions gratefully received!!

The radio failing to sense the time from the dashboard clock. Sometimes it auto synchronises and sometimes just this..

Could be that the ignition live and battery cables have been switched.

Hi, I am 95% sure that I checked the wires and their colours against the Quadlock wiring diagram on the Ford Wiki and all seemed ok.

Hi,

I'm having the same problem with my Sony 6CD HU. have you found the solution for that?