Stereo stopped working properly after touching a strong magnet to it

MADISONERM

MEMBER
2003 NISSAN PATHFINDER
69 MILES

Hello, my car radio has been fine the whole time I’ve had it, but one day my cassette aux cord stopped working. So I bought a new one and it still didn’t work or just played quietly with lots of static. So then I tried putting in a normal cassette and the audio faded in and out my CD player and radio work fine but without an aux cord. I have a hard time enjoying driving without music playing from my phone. I thought of how this could happen? Then I remembered playing with a strong magnet and touching it to my radio which could be the problem I’m hoping. I can do this fix on my own or with my dads help but I’m not even sure what the problem is.

Thursday, May 14th, 2020 AT 5:42 PM

3 Replies

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

So this issue started after you touched a strong magnet to your radio? Also, can you get a picture of what set up you are using? Is it a cassette player adapter meaning you hook your phone to the aux cord and then put the cassette adapter in the cassette player?

Clearly a strong magnet can definitely hurt your radio because the interior components are metal. If this is all accurate, I suspect the only fix is to replace the radio. However, let me know these questions and we can go from there. Thanks

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Thursday, May 14th, 2020 AT 6:06 PM

MADISONERM

MEMBER
2 POSTS

Well, I don’t know exactly if that’s the reason but it seems plausible and I was afraid it would be a take out the whole radio type of thing. Yes, it’s a cassette disc with a cord coming out of it. To be honest I touched it to the radio and it was fine for the longest time and then my sister borrowed my cassette aux and when she gave it back it didn’t work. So I bought a new one and then realized my other cassettes didn’t work either and I know magnets can also erase cassettes.

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Thursday, May 14th, 2020 AT 6:10 PM

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Yeah. I think the easiest way to test this is to try this cassette in another vehicle all together and see if it operates assuming the new one was not exposed to this magnet as well. You are correct that this could causes issues. So if it works in another vehicle then it is your radio.

Let us know what happens. Thanks

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Thursday, May 14th, 2020 AT 7:46 PM