I think I screwed up my stereo for good... I had to jump my car a few days ago and the car I was jumping from had a black wire for positive and a red wire for negative. I was in a hurry, so I didn't double check his battery. Once I started the engine, the cables immediately melted. As soon as I looked at his battery, I realized they were crossed.

After cursing a bit, I grabbed another set, jumped the car thought everything was fine. I noticed immediately the dome didn't come on (which I didn't think was a problem because it had been working intermittently for a few weeks prior). My stereo also didn't work. My cigarette lighter was never hooked up.

I tried to put a new fuse in (I believe its the 20A accessory) but it blows immediately. I took it to circuit city and they tried to hook the stereo to a purple wire on the steering column. They put an inline fuse on this wire and it also popped immediately. At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I'm sure crossing the cables is what messed up my stereo because it worked fine up until this happened. Am I just SOL? If you guys have any ideas they would, as always, be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Inside the radio there is likely a diode wired across the power lead to ground, it's there to protect the radio against reverse polarity.

You'll have to pull the radio out to repair that. Sometimes when they see reverse polarity they 'fuse' like a short across the power lead to ground.

It could also be the internal audio amplifier chip has shorted to ground from the reverse bias. If you know someone good with electronics have them take a look at the radio, sometimes you can just get lucky and clip the protection diode out, but you may have damaged it beyond economical repair.

 

Thanks for the info Rusty, I'll have someone check it out.