Stop if you’ve heard this before. You left your headlights on and your battery died. Or it just died because, whatever, it was old and it was cold outside and nothing lasts forever. Either way, the battery died and you fixed the problem: a jump start, or a battery charger, or even a new battery, problem solved and you’re back on the road. All is well, right? Except now your radio doesn’t work.
My car broke down and the radio stopped working after I started it
First your battery died, and now your stereo died, and it really seems like it’s going to be one of those days. So you drive the rest of the way to work in silence, hoping the next step isn’t buying a brand new stereo. And it probably isn’t. In most cases, fixing a stereo that’s dead after the battery dies is a lot simpler than that.
Of course, it can also be much more complicated.
There are a few different reasons why a car stereo will stop working after the battery is completely dead. The first, and by far the most common, is that the radio has an anti-theft feature that kicks in when the battery is removed. When that happens, all you have to do is enter the correct car stereo code and you’re back in business.
