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2011 Patriot Radio Won't Work

1467 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by  cranbiz
I have a 2011 Jeep Patriot with a RES model radio/CD player. It worked beautifully for years up until about a month ago. Then I could no longer receive any radio signals on AM or FM. It would occasionally kick in for a few seconds, but most of the time the radio audio was dead. The audio when I played a CD still worked fine. I assumed is must be an antenna connection problem. I took the car to a local Chrysler dealer and was told the diagnostic charge to just look at it would be $120, and that's not to repair anything. I balked at this high price and decided to investigate it myself. I search the internet and found Youtube videos on how to open up the console and remove the radio unit and check the antenna and power connections. I cleaned everything out with compressed air and reassembled everything, making sure all connections were tight. Now, the entire raido/CD player won't even power on at all. I thought about buying a duplicate radio/CD unit from a salvage yard or ebay, but if that doesn't work, I probably won't be able to return it, and I'll be out $50 to $100. I really don't want to sink $200+ into a radio. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be wrong and how I can economically fix it?
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Honestly, go aftermarket.

The AM/FM issue was most likely the antenna. I don't know how the Patriot antenna is mounted but on a JK, the base removes and has a coax slip connection that either comes out or gets corroded. The Patriot is probably similar. The radio is controlled by the canbus so a reset may fix it if you have good connections to the radio. Pull the negative battery terminal for about 5 minutes and reconnect it. If the radio works, great. If it doesn't, replace it with an aftermarket radio.

A salvage yard radio will probably need a security code, which the salvage yard will not have. Getting one from the dealer is not the easiest process in the world.
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