Hello, I bought a radio off ebay for my car, it came with the large red and yellow wires swapped using crimp bullet connectors and the fuse bridged with copper wire fed into the holes.

I plugged it in and it came on, but no speakers were working, despite the auction saying it worked.

Thanks, Pete

The stereo has a tel mute wire, I wondered if this might be triggered so I tried putting this to ground which caused it to spark.

Now when I turn the key to ancilliary none of the lights that would normally illuminate do.

This is where it gets weird, when I plug the stereo in the ancilliary lights come on, whether the key is in or not. Could it be a blown fuse? I cba to go through every fuse and the car came with no owners manual, maybe google will give some info.

The old blaupunkt stereo I had in there worked fine, but now when I plug that in nothing happens, it wont switch on or anything.

[Edited on 6/10/12 by vanepico]

Crisis averted, just blew the number 22 fuse

PHEW!!!

Phew..........

Just out of interest, how long did it take you to check the blown fuse compared to how long it took you to abandon the job, get on your pc/laptop and whine/whinge/ask the forum about what to check on your own car?

There are hundreds of fuses underneath, I didn't think that they would have the fuse wire exposed so you can see if it is blown, I didn't think is was a fuse, I was worried it was more permanent

All sorted now though, got spare fuses in the glove box so should be good to go!