problem getting good ground, 03 jetta

So as long as my voltage is good I shouldn't need to worry about my ground, right? My voltage at the amp terminals is the same as at the battery and alternator so I guess that means I am good.

Yes, if you get the same voltage at battery, alternator, and amplifier ... then you're all good. Sounds like you had some issues with the test gear previously, but it sounds alright now. I'm curious though, why did you think the ground was an issue in the first place? -JustinMalcom: "This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode."

Jayne: "We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode.

Try a voltage drop with one lead on the amplifiers ground wire at the amplifier itself and then put the other lead on the actual grounding point and see what your voltage drop is.

teenkertoy wrote: I'm curious though, why did you think the ground was an issue in the first place?

I thought it was bad when I did my first test checking the resistance. That is when I got a reading of 6 ohms. I don't really know what the issue was on the first test. The problem was that when I tried to measure the resistance of the jumpers I was using I only got a reading of 0.7 ohms or so. That was with 40 ft of 16 gauge wire so I know that was probably wrong.

Okay, new problem. Now I think my ground is bad for sure. I just connected my stereo and noticed that I have a ground loop. Any ideas how to get it out? I am contemplating just running a 4 gauge wire back to my battery. Any other ideas so I don't have to do this or is this my best option.

I'm sending you a pm, check your messages. -JustinMalcom: "This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode."

Jayne: "We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode.

Back when I had a subwoofer in my '03 Jetta I made my own grounding point underneath the rear seat and she worked great.

Okay so I finally got my ground all set. I not really sure how I got it to work but it does. What I did was take my DMM and start measuring any bare metal I could to see if I could find a reasonable ground. I thought that the seat belt idea was good because it looked like a really nice spot to ground to. It was thick metal and bare as well. So I measured it with my DMM and got about 13 ohms. This was the same as I got for all the other spots I measured in my car. What I tried next was to see if doing part of the big 3 would help. So I left my DMM on the seat belt measuring 13 ohms then went and took a wire and connected it to the negative terminal on my battery. After that I connected it to the ground on my engine block. I went back to check the rating on my DMM and got 4.3 ohms!! I could not understand how it could make that much of a difference. Next I went and disconnected the wire to see if it went back up to 13 ohms but it was still at 4 ohms. Then I thought that it must have just moved so it was on bare metal better so I went back and rechecked all the other spots I measured before. They were all around 4 ohms too. So now I have no clue what the problem was but anyways I reconnected my original grounding spot and secured it tight just to see what would happen. I turn on my system and I had no ground noise. My voltage seemed pretty good as well so I'm happy because my amp works now. I just wanted to update those that helped, thanks again. I just have to get my TL built now and I'll be all set. I'll make sure to update you guys once that is done too.