Hi all, I have been searching for a possible answer to this problem all arvo to no avail.

I have had my car 3months, everything is factory fitted, no mods that i am aware of. It is a manual.

First issue was with power loss (engine) when driving - solved by replacing both coils.

Throughout, this time the stereo has been working intermittently. At times the cd skips - i thought it was a bass problem so simply reduced the bass on the equalizer. Didn't really do much, some cd's skip some don't.

More recently the stereo sound has simply stopped while cd or radio is on. Turning stereo off & on has no effect. When i get back in the car the next day it might would work in the morning and when driving home - until i turned hard left onto our road. Thought it was a wiring issue but all is neat and tidy - no loose wires.

Battery went flat two weeks ago, charging fixed it. Appears that i left the clock light on (did'nt know it had one!) and possibly left the door light on, left door slightly open? over 48 hours.

Now the newest issue that is causing me concern is that i drove to work the other day, stereo worked fine.
Got into the car after work, turned the stereo on and i could hear the engine through the rear speakers. Turned the stereo off and could still hear it. Turned on headlights, got louder then slowly reduced in volume. Repeated turning stereo on and off made no difference. Turning fan on to max (4 speed) - louder noise, down to 3 - less noise.
Drove home (65kms) with that bloody noise driving me bonkers!! Stereo did not work whole way - i kept checking!!
Pulled into the carport - noise continued after ignition turned off, slowly faded. Turned off the car. Checked the back speakers and right side was Hot enough to fry an egg - Left side Cool as a cucumber!?!
Re-started car and stereo worked - no more enging noise through speakers. Same the next day.

I have checked the fuses - they are all good including those in the engine bay.
All the wiring appears to be neat, tidy, not frayed, no rub marks that i can see, no bare wires.
Earth wire by the battery looks good, neat, clean and is firmly fixed - as is the earth wire under the dash.
Everything under the dash looks as neat as a pin, there is not a single loose wire that i can see or anything else that looks dodgy.

I don't have a meter to test - is there anything else i should look for - particularly in relation to the Heat issue? before taking to Auto Electrician. I live in the country and not having the car for a couple of days will be a giant pain as I do 130kms a day to-from work and work full-time.

I would appreciate any help and am very, very sorry that this is soooooooooooo long - just wanted to be clear

ta muchly in advance

The Fraud Laser factory CD players of the model are common for failing, with a ground loop across the circuit board. Get a cheap aftermakret Sony/JVC/Kenwood CD player and it should solve all of your problems.

The Coil packs is also a common fault, watch out cause they usually last about 80,000Km's a set

Thanks for that - I was thinking of replacing the stereo anyway, mainly because of the skipping.
Just got really worried when the speaker got hot the other day. I will keep an eye on it.

I will keep in mind about the coils - as i said i drive a lot of km's, so it's handy to know about the 80k mark. A bit sucky tho!!

Damn Mazda/Ford trying to be tricky with a waste spark ignition system... Thank god they went with individual coils on the later model cars.

The speaker got hot because the stereo was shorting 12 or 5V thorugh the wiring loom in a constant DC phase so it generates a lot of heat.

"The speaker got hot because the stereo was shorting 12 or 5V thorugh the wiring loom in a constant DC phase so it generates a lot of heat."

Err - i understood "The speaker got hot because the stereo was shorting -------------------- so it generates a lot of heat"

I have absolutely no idea what the middle bit means tho!

If you could explain I would appreciate it

Funny thing - have had no problems since i posted the original question/essay :S