Wipers turning off Radio

[bhop]

Ok, so today, it rained here in So-Cal. It only rains a few times a year, so I'm not sure how long this problem has been around, but today, on my 2 hour drive home (only 13 miles, rain traffic sucks in L.A.)

I had my wipers set to intermittent mode. After sitting in traffic for a while, it started to turn off the radio when the wipers.. well, wiped. It would come back on when the wiper returned to their original position, but then after a few seconds, when the wiper would move again, the same thing would happen. Wipers up, radio off, wipers down, radio on. It's weird, i've never seen anything like this before. Only happened at idle too..

Has this ever happened to anyone else? Or anyone have any ideas what might be causing it?

 

[neilb]

your wipers do draw a lot of power, do you have a udp? could you be draining the battery at idle and the radio is shutting off due to low voltage? If it's only at idle it could be this.

If no udp, check that your charging system is good.

 

[luv2rallye]

Or someone hooked the radio power to the wrong place. But I agree it sounds like the voltage is dropping too low. Measure the voltage at the battery and at the radio when this happens. Do the wipers go a lot slower at idle with the radio on or off than at higher engine speed? If not bad alt or weak battery, it may be as simple as the battery cable connections need to be cleaned.