I have a 1991 ES250. The previous owner put in an aftermarket radio. Every time a turn the car off, the radio resets, losing all previous settings. In addition, the car clock on the dashboard also resets. Anyone have any ideas?

 

It should be your wiring. Maybe you do not have a constant wire connected.

 

It more than likely is the radio/clock fuse. Not sure what it is called exactly on your ES250, but it is responsible for obviously the radio memory as well as the clock memory. Don't be confused because your radio is still working. It uses two separate fuses. One for main power and one for the memory.

 

Thanks for the help. I'll take a look.

 

personally i think your constant wire for your radio is not connected to the constant power on the car. most aftermarket radios have 3 wires for power/ground. 1 - (red) constant power. sometimes this wire is yellow. the way you can tell if it is a power wire or turn-on wire is if it has an in-line fuse (usually 3 to 5 amps). otherwise you will have to use a voltmeter. 2 - (yellow) turn-on. sometimes this wire is red. 3 - (black) this is your ground wire. another possibility is that both your power and turn-on wire are connected to the turn-on wire of the car. a voltmeter can confirm this theory. as far as your car clock....i don't have any idea. good luck.

 

you need 2 of 12V power to get the radio working. I believe the constant power wire (batt) is not connected correctly.

 

Having the constant 12V wire for the radio hooked up incorrectly would cause the radio itself to loose the presets. However, since he stated his cars clock also resets to 12 O-Clock as well, that leads me to the shared clock/radio fuse. I can't say 100% for all cars, but it is very common on a lot of Japanese cars I've worked on to have the clock and radio presets share the same fuse. So, if the aftermarket deck is wired through an aftermarket wire harness, or simply spliced into the same 12V constant power wire for the stock radio, it is possible for the aftermarket radio to loose its presets along with the cars clock reseting since that constant 12V power source share the same fuse.

Anyway, the OP hasn't posted in a while. I wonder if he has found the problem? Would be nice to see if he figured out what the problem was.

 

Thanks for all the help. I haven't figured it out yet. The car's electrical system is completely screwed up. Whoever installed the radio did not know what they were doing. The power door locks don't work either.

Today was the best though. I was driving on the highway at about 70 mph and the engine just quit. All the lights and indicators worked as did the radio and clock, but the engine just quit. After I stopped I tried turning it over and while the starter was working fine, the engine wouldn't start.

I am guessing the fuel pump crapped out or some other wonderful thing with the electrical system has popped up.

Any ideas on what might make the engine quit so quickly?

 

Just to follow-up, turned out that the timing belt broke so I had it, the idlers and water pump changed out. Seems to run fine now. I got an incredible deal on this. $650 for the whole job. I think this guy is the new mechanic on all of my cars.

About the clock radio fuse, where would that be located?