Sound System silent when cold

[ueww40]

I have a 2004 Tahoe with a 6-CD OEM radio which worked fine all summer. Now that temps are going down to near freezing all of a sudden the entire sound system is dead when I start out in the morning, not a peep. The system is Bose and I don't think it is the radio, because it has power and everything seems to work like normal including the CD player but there is no sound. No FM, no AM, no CD, no nothing. After 2 or 3 hours of driving with the heater on and the car is nice and cozy all of a sudden the sound comes on loud and clear and everything is fine from then on until the next day. I suspect that there may be some corrosion or something like this with some of the Bose amplifier connections which I would like to check but I don't know where GM put that amplifier. Does anybody have any suggestions what could cause this and where the Bose box is?

 

[ueww40]

Wow, not one response in 2 and a half years. What a dead forum. Anyway, maybe some other person has a similar problem and this will help him.

After tolerating this for a few years now, I decided to put my mind to it and make it a project. I removed the bucket from the center console so I could see the Bose amplifier underneath and put a hair dryer to it and sure enough after about 3 to 5 minutes of applying heat the radio started playing. I waited til the next morning and turned on the radio - nothing. Now I unplugged and plugged in the connectors a few times in case the problem was with the connectors and maybe some corrosion, but that didn't make a difference. Then I applied heat again to the heavy aluminum body of the amplifier unit away from the plugs and 5 minutes later the radio came on. Now I was pretty much assured that the problem was with the Bose amplifier. To my surprise it was very easy to remove the amplifier from the center console. There are some really good help videos on YouTube on how to remove that baby. You don't need to remove the center console to do this. Undoing the connectors is easy and so is unscrewing the 2 rear mounting screws for the amplifier. They are easy to get to with a 7 mm socket and a long extension. But the 2 front screws are not that easy. You need a 7 mm wrench to get to them and you work strictly by intuition and gut feeling. It depends on how talented you are how long it will take you to get them out. But you will not get them back in unless you make it easy on yourself and drill 2 holes in precisely the right spot through the metal frame above it (see attached picture). Once you have done this it becomes relatively easy to install the replacement unit. Follow the tutorial video, there are a few other tricks you need to observe. I went to the local salvage yard to get a hopefully good replacement and I did and I had this thing out of the donor car in 20 minutes flat and the thing works like a charm. After all this time problem is finally solved.