Car Lighter not working

[B16a2 Civic]

2003 Neon
a new cd player was just installed in her car and she said her car lighter thing aint workin, a lil help

[joecoolfreak]

fuse?

[B16a2 Civic]

checked them all, inside and outside the car, none are for teh car lighter, tested each one anyway with my fuse tester

[joecoolfreak]

Is it the lighter itself, or is it the plug that the lighter goes into? Have you taken a multimeter to the adapter?

[B16a2 Civic]

the plug itself, whatever i try to plug in, it doesnt work

[joecoolfreak]

Well, most likely since it went out when they installed the cd player, I would assume that they either cut a wire that they weren't supposed to or pulled one out of place. A 12V plug adapter is very simple. Just one ground and a hot 12v wire. You can try and trace the wires back to find the mistake which will probably not be easy or fun, or you can just find another hot 12V circuit and a new ground and just wire it back up. In my experience, it is usually much more efficient to just set new wiring instead of trying to troubleshoot bad wiring.

[B16a2 Civic]

ahh okay, cause i found the initial black and red wire hooked up to the back of the car lighter itself, so it would be best to just find those wires and ground and power it again?

[joecoolfreak]

Exactly. Red is hot (power) and black is ground so you can just cut them and hook them up to any hot and ground source (provided it is 12V) and it will work just fine. The hard part is making sure you splice into a circuit that can handle the correct amount of amperage and that it turns on and off when you want it to (ie. do you want the lighter adapter to work when the car is off, or just when the key is it it etc..). If you have any other questions about it, feel free to pm me for contact details and I can talk you through it over the phone or even come to help you depending on location. I have a great deal of experience in this area.

[B16a2 Civic]

Exactly. Red is hot (power) and black is ground so you can just cut them and hook them up to any hot and ground source (provided it is 12V) and it will work just fine. The hard part is making sure you splice into a circuit that can handle the correct amount of amperage and that it turns on and off when you want it to (ie. do you want the lighter adapter to work when the car is off, or just when the key is it it etc..). If you have any other questions about it, feel free to pm me for contact details and I can talk you through it over the phone or even come to help you depending on location. I have a great deal of experience in this area.

Thanks homie, im in Columbus, thats gon be quite a drive LIRL, but i ppreciate ya help, imma rep you up
+25

[joecoolfreak]

Anytime man. I am more than happy to help people out.

[speedminded]

2003 Neon
a new cd player was just installed in her car and she said her car lighter thing aint workin, a lil help

who installed it...why not take it back?

[B16a2 Civic]

my homeboi did, he paid me to look at it and fix it for him....
i hada problem like this with my car, but the plug just wasnt in for me