Today I pulled my car out of storage for the winter, since I have been driving a car with no subs all winter I immediately cranked up the volume as I was driving home. About halfway home (about 2 minutes) my subs suddenly stopped working. Once I was home I used a Power Probe to verify that I had power, ground and signal going to my amp and I found that the 40a fuse on the amp was blown. I replaced it and tried my subs again and one sounded like it was blown and the other had almost no excursion and was really quiet.

I went to check my wiring and I noticed that my wires and my terminal cup to the sub that sounded blown was partially melted. I checked my power and ground wires, I was able to check about 90% of the power wire and it all looked good but my ground wire was loose in its crimp connection. I fixed the ground wire and disconnected the sub with the melted wires and tried it again but the other sub still has no excursion and I noticed the power light on my amp flickering every time the bass hit.

Could the loose ground have caused all the problems I'm having now? And since fixing the ground didn't make the problems go away could I have damaged my subs or amp? I'd really appreciate any help.

And as if it wasn't bad enough that I'm having these problems right after getting my car out of storage, today is also my birthday.

 

anyone? I'd like to figure out what caused the problems before I start buying new parts

 

I'd probably call fault on the amplifier. Might have been moist coming out of a storage locker but there's no way to know for sure without trying another amp.

 

I don't have another amp to try, I did open my amp up though and I didn't see any signs of water damage

little more information, I borrowed my boss' multimeter today and tested the resistance

both subs were DVC 4 ohm subs

subwoofer #1 (the one with barely any excursion)
one voice coil was at about 1.5 ohms, the other was around 1 ohm

subwoofer #2 (the one that sounded blown and melted its terminal cup)
both voice coils were between 3.5 and 4 ohms

both terminal cups had about 2 ohms at each wire

both subs passed the 9 volt battery test

 

Sounds like sub#1 had a real bad day, in turn presenting too low of a load to the amp which drew too much current, blowing the fuse.
DVC 4ohm subs should not present 1.5 or 1 ohm loads across the voicecoils.
IMO, change/recone the sub and you should be fine.

 

any idea what could have caused that while the car was just sitting in storage? and could one sub have caused the wiring for the other sub to melt?

I guess I'll order another sub, redo the speaker wiring and see how it works

 

Without seeing the sub, car an storage over the winter, humidity buildup or something foreign in the gap would be my best guess. As for the amp, if it's not functioning at 100% with the "good" sub (3.5 & 4 ohm coils) I'd be concerned.
Who knows- it could have been that loose ground which caused everything. Really tough to say without seeing the situation in person.

 

I was worried it would come to this there's not much for audio shops around me either so I can't really get a professional to look at it

guess I'll just put my system back together and hope for the best

 

Have you opened up the amp for a thorough inspection?

 

I took the rear cover off of it, I didn't see anything wrong with it, I could only see one side of the circuit board though since I can't remove it