This is about a co-worker's daughter's car, so hopefully she's given me accurate information to go by here.
Her car is a 2002 Sunfire with CD player (the one with RDS), and this winter she let the car sit for several months without starting it. Of course, the battery died and they had to boost it to start. They had to do it a few times, as they didn't let it run long enough to properly try to charge.
Anyway, apparently since this happened, the battery is amazingly holding a charge again, but the clock on the radio resets to 12:00 every time she starts the car. Since these radios always have power, this doesn't make much sense to me, so I thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone else has experienced this. Mine always worked fine when I was using it, and I tried searching with no luck. She says the presets seem to stay in memory, so that seems to be working.
I'd love to hear from anyone with more info. I figure that maybe there's a clock chip in the radio that was damaged during the boosting, but that's my best guess without going too deep.
Thanks in advance,
John

It's definitely something internal. If it really is saving presets then all the wiring is fine as well as the power going through that wiring.

Unfortunately I haven't a clue what that internal problem might be

new radio should do it...

A bad ground problem, but it really sounds like a bad battery, or loose or @!#$ty connection, and just because it holds a charge doesn't mean it is good. Things like this always come in at the dealership I work at, the high humidity and wildly altering weather conditions do a freaking number on batteries.

my guess is the battery is toast and when they turn the motor over it pulls to much of a charge. The battery has enough power to fire the motor, but not enough to continue to power everything else as well... as soon as the motor kicks on, then power gets restored to the radio.

Does that sound stupid?

The only reason i say that is because my brother did his aftermarket radio wrong and it was he didn't hook the constant power wire up (Should be yellow wire). There is the auxillary power that fires it up upon start up, but the 12v constant to save all your setting and the clock.