I have been chasing what I assume is a ground loop since I bought the truck. its never really been super noticeable till my serio blew up and I had to replace it. the new stereo has the preouts set way higher and thus makes the noise more noticeable. Before what I noticed is a noisy ground in the steering wheel buttons. my old aftermarket stereo showed the signal it was getting off the ground for the steering wheel controls and it bounced all over the place making it unreliable and sometimes not work at all. with the new stereo this is the same but now I can hear the noise in the speakers. it does very a little with throttle but not like I am used to. normally with a ground loop it gets higher pitched with revs. not this. it gets a little quieter and deepens quit a bit. here the real kicker. somewhere around 10 minutes of driving and the sound just stops. all the values for the steering wheel control change.

I have now replaced the alternator, got 2 new odyssey AGM batteries and upgraded all power and ground to 2/0. I still can’t figure out what is making this noise and why it goes away after driving for a while. it comes right back ig I turn off the truck and start it again.

I did upgrade all the grounds but I am afraid maybe I made a ground loop whit the dual batterys system. The alternator is grounded directly to the passenger battery. The passenger battery is grounded to the chassis. drivers’ battery is grounded to the frame and block and I think a tiny ground to the firewall.

 

There is also the bonding ground under the pass footwell, body to frame.

but if the noise consistently goes away after 10 minutes, I doubt it’s a ground issue. It sounds more like a module issue that it’s timing out.

 

Also my thought. but I cant figure out what it is. Its driving me nuts becuase I can either kinda use my steering wheel controls for the first 10 minutes or kinda use my steering wheel controls after 10 minutes but since all the values change my stereo gets confused. they bouce all over the place in both instances anyway. weird bit is my climat control butons an the steering wheel are flawless all the time. maybe just les sensitve to change.

 

The stereo is powered on/off through the gauge cluster correct? Could there be something in the cluster causing this issue? I’m having the typical gauge goes dead, stereo, and power windows go dead issue. I’ll be repairing the cluster, but thought I’d point it out.

 

could be something to look at. I have been fortunate enough to never have issues with my cluster. My neighbor has the 2005 excursion and is on his 3rd professional rebuild on his.