I had a friend of mine install my amp and sub in my car, it's been working for over a year now but then i left for college and i came back and now it doesn't work correctly.
The subs don't work unless i am in park or if i am applying the brake at a stoplight, then the sub will turn on for a brief second. 2ndly my system is suppose to run at 2 ohms but when i got back the light on my amp says the system is running at 1 ohm. I haven't changed any settings and i doubt anyone else has since i've been gone cuz nobody drives my car. Do you guys know what could be causing this problem and what i can do to fix it? Any help would be helpful, thanks!

 

just curious are you on an after market head unit?

 

no, i'm in a 92 ls400 with the lexus premium sound sysmtem, i have a clarion amp and blaupunkt subwoofer. I will get the models of my amp and sub later on when i get home. Any idea what is going on? my headlights don't flicker so i think i should have enough juice and don't need a cap, but i'm a newbie so i may be wrong...thanks!

 

Sounds like it could be a loose wire.

 

Here's some things to consider:

Did the clarion amp replace just your factory sub amp, or is it powering the entire system? How is the amp grounded and powered? What is the chance you've had some water seepage while the car has been sitting? Where is the amp located? To me it sounds like a ground problem. Is the speaker somehow grounding to the body of the car?

I'd start at the amp with a test light. See if you can duplicate the problem and identify if the constant power or the turn on lead is cutting off. If you are getting no interruption of power to the amp, then confirm your ground for the amp is still a good one. Perhaps in grounding the amp to the car, corrosion has affected it over time.

Once you confirm that the amp is powering on and staying on, then check your sub audio path. Maybe the amp is on but the sound is cutting out. What was the source for your sub audio? Did you tap it from the factory stereo's sub outs or another method? If you are pulling your sub sound from another speaker's leads, that can affect your ohms. Confirm that the speaker is correctly connected and mounted. that's a start I hope.
tj