check the fuses and then update.

 

when you took the stock hu out was there a wire attached to the mounting bracket? it so thats your ground. second does your car have the infinity sound system? if it does then you need to hook up the remote wire(blue) to the power ant. wire(blue with strip i think) then update.

 

i just installed an in-dash dvd head unit and i didnt hook up the remote to the power antenna. my radio works but it never comes in strong. its always static-ish. is that why?

 

I'd worry about the harness first.

Only four wires? That's probably not the right one, sounds like you don't have any speaker wires on that harness. You have all the right power cables, and the illumination one, but you're missing speaker wires if that's all you have.

 

Orange is typically your Illumination wire in which sometimes is not necessary for hook up. Not a big deal. Some decks are different sometimes in blue wires or maybe I forgot. Blue or blue/white are your Power antenna, which I don't think you would have one, and the other is a remote turn on, for your amps and such. Read the manual or whatever to tell you what is what exactly.

If you don't have any power going through the head unit, you may not have a ground connection. Like SEBRING said, there was a ground wire to the back of the stock unit with a screw and possibly looks like a cresent moon. Take the ground wire from your aftermarket unit and wire nut it to the one that came off the stocker. If you have the power wires hooked up correctly, it should power up then. Do you have an Infinity amp underneath your passenger seat?

Edit: After trying to look up what the back of the unit looks like, I'm assuming that theres one slot for a plug in with all the wires which would have your speaker wires also. If your harness doesn't have any wires for the speaker wires, it may sound like you have to hard wire them directly. From your speakers in the car to the deck.

 

if you have the infinity amp under the passenger seat then the harness that you got should have the following.
-ground (black)
-power anntena (blue with a stripe)
-power (red)
-remote (blue)
-yellow wire (cant think of what its for)
-2 rca's for the stock amp that plugs to the aftermarket hu
these are the major things you need

can post pics later if needed

 

it easy, i bought a pioneer couple weeks ago, I'm assuming that you would like to keep your stock amp, thats the only reason why you would want to use the harness with 4 wires, first take electrical tape and tape the ends of all the speaker wires(white, white/black, green, green/black, gray,gray black, violet, violet/black) (not together, individually) don't leave it to chance because chance bites, and hard too. next yellow is power, red and orange are connected together to the red on the harness and blue/white is connected to the amp. next you need to connect your RCA cables your gonna need the other adapter that came with your METRA series cable (not the harness with all the wires that includes the speaker ones), connect it to the circular wire part in your car then connect your RCA outputs to your inputs in you radio, after that you should be good to go

 

Do you have the infinity system?

That is the first question.

if you need help finding parts Crutchfield is amazing. I ordered my parts and the harness so that I could hook my deck to the infinity system I had in my car. So far it works great. No bypass was needed for the amp.

There are also other posts here about installing a deck in the eclipse posting in the Garage section.

 

yes, i do have the infinity sound system with the amp under the seat. the harness i am using it the metra 70-7003, and the fuses look fine. would it work if i did what SEBRING BOY said? connecting the remote wire to the power antenna wire coming out of my harness? heres a description of what wires i have:

wire harness: orange(illumination), yellow(12 volt memory), blue(power antenna), and red(12 volt power)...thats what it actually says on the wires.

wires out of pioneer: black ground, yellow that says battery, remote (blue with white stripe), red which says ACC, and speaker wires which are purple/black, white/black, gray/black, and green/black.

and then i have the cable with the rca's that came with the harness. it has the 4 rca's, a remote, and i big circle connector that doesnt fit into the pioneer.


so after reading what sebring boy said, would i connect the remote from the rca cable, the remote from the pioneer, and the power antenna from the harness?

hope this helps because i really want to get this head unit working. thanks for all the help so far

 

Well I have an Alpine deck and the power antenna wire is not hooked up in mine so I really can't see or understand how that could make a difference. Anythings worth a shot, but that has nothing to do with turning the stereo on, or shouldn't I would think. It needs a power source and a ground to turn on and it sounds to me your first issue is with the ground connection. All those other wires are irrelevant at this point because you have no power to it.

 

plug in the rca's, connect the remote from the pioneer to the power antenna from the harness. it should then work.

the remote wire from the deck is what makes the radio come on when the key is turned on. the power antenna from the metra harness has to be hooked to the remote. for some wierd reason the p.a. wire is what triggers the amp to come on when it is hooked to the remote.

 

That is weird. I don't have the Metra harness so I should clear that up first, but the remote wire on mine just runs to my amps. And my P.A. isn't hooked up at all. Typically what turns on the radio when the key is turned should be the yellow wire I think hooked up to the car wiring, correct? Like the ignition wire? Or is it the red? I forgot what color ours where for the car. Yellow to yellow and red to red. Sometimes if red is not available, I've run the yellow with red to yellow.

 

you might be right. i thought the yellow wire was the memory wire. so when u set your stations and turn the car off and on you dont lose all your presets. and the remote wire actually triggers the radio to come on when the car is started.

 

so i just got off at 5, and already had my car tore apart by 5:30. i tried connecting the power antenna wire to the remote wires, i made sure the ground was on, i checked the fuses, and i even switched up the reds and yellows. still nothing. im about to just take it to best buy and have them hook it up. im not giving up just yet though. could someone post some pics of their harness wired to the head unit? i must be missing something really obvious and i dont know what it is

 

i will have pictures up here for you tomorrow. dont give up yet buddy.

 

haha thanks man

 

Ok, The rear and front audio wires do not need to be connected. Those are why you use that round thing. Then the round thing has 4 RCA plugs. Those four plugs go into a specific plug on the back of your deck. You should look at the manual with the plug adapter to know what colors to match up with what.

Then there are I think four other wires that need to be connected.
Illumination
Yellow
Red
Remote(it was blue) the remote is important without the remote your deck will not work it needs the remote.

The big circle that doesn't fit your pioneer, is actually to connect it too the amp, you should of had another circle plug that went into your Stock Deck. This directly connects to that adapter that has the RCA's.

Not all of those wires have to be hooked up that are there from your aftermarket deck. Only the ones that your harness connects to.

Before I forget. UNHOOK your CAR BATTERY before you do this stuff. You don't want to shock yourself or damage anything because you accidentally touched two wrong wires together.

 

In your case, what i would do is get a dvom and check resistance in the ground and check for voltage in both the ignition and constant power wires. its already been gone over before but, red is ignition source ( powers radio with the key on). yellow is the 12v memory wire ( constant power). black is the ground, and just to be clear, did you connect the ground wire from the head unit to the steering shaft, or from the harness? these three wires mentioned above are the only ones needing to be concerned right now becuase of the no power, and no illumination problem. sound can be covered as we you go, but as you've said you have the red going to the red and the yellow going to the yellow...but exactly how do you have the ground run becuase thats the wire I'm concerned with. Its HAS to be run directly from the head unit and I perfer to solder the ends together and cover it with shrink tube, but a butt connecter should suffice. Completly bypass the harness with the ground becuase it goes nowhere, ( the infinity unit is internally grounded so it dosnt need a chassis source).

as far as illumination and remote kickon, the remote wire is only a 12v "switch" source that sends less then 1 amp of current. it is not used to power anything other then a 'switch" inside an amplifier that closes the circuit. the illumination wire is only nessesary if you want to dim your head unit with your guages, otherwise keyon power should light up the unit itself. if you dont care about that feature then tape it off.

another aspect to look at, is check the fuse on the head unit. though this probably isnt the case, it dosnt hurt to check it anyway.

the power antenna is the same as the remote wire. rather then it be used as a reference voltage for an amplifier, its used to do the same thing but for the power antenna instead. a power antenna has its own power source and ground so the wire from your head unit only acts as a " remote kickon" wire. leave that one alone becuase you dont have a power antenna and tying both wires together could do more damage then good. the remote wire is active if the cd, aux, or radio feature is selected. power antenna is only active is the radio is on.

another note, the deck WILL work without the remote hooked up, just your amp wont without it. the other wires that you see from the smaller harness are for the steering wheel controls, and the clock pod which you wont be using for the sound system anymore, so dont worry about them. focus on the larger, main harness.

Menace put it alittle more simpler then I did, I'm just seeing some information being given to you that isnt pertaining to your problem which is, turning the head unit on ( with the key). No offense to the other guys trying to help out...we all know as simple as this install is, it can be a pain in the ass becuase of the smallest oversite.

I would take pictures of my setup for you but I've 3 sets of RCA outs, 1 aux RCA, and a sirius connection plus the factory harness all stuffed in the small space behind the head unit. its too much of a pain to pull the deck out and carefully stuff it all back in...but I will be doing a photoshoot of the complete install with both amps and subs this weekend ( after I clean it up).

 

+1 e-rep. Actually for me that was a pretty good indepth explanation to understand. :yesway: I was trying to get him to get power to his unit before the sound like you said, because I agree also that the issue right now is getting the unit turned on. Everything that recieves power needs a power source and a GOOD ground. The remote wire has nothing to do with getting the radio to work. Our cars don't have an actual power antenna, which drives it to expand and retract with the radio. So that is another wire that should be useless. It shouldn't be any different hooking up the deck to a 2001 Stratus with no power antenna. You don't hook that wire up. Your antenna for the radio is that plug that came off of your stocker. Just plug that in your new deck. So this still leaves you with the problem of your ground and power wires. OR I thought of possibly you having a faulty deck.

 

I'm too tired to read through all the above but I see several incorrect statements. This is all truth:

red wire = 12V power when ignition is turned on. REQUIRED.

black ground wire. REQUIRED. Connect this DIRECTLY to bare metal on the car's chassis. Don't attach it to a bracket or something like that. Connect it DIRECTLY to the chassis while troubleshoting your issues.

yellow wire = 12V power all the time (called "constant" wire or "memory" wire). Possibly required.

blue wire w/ stripe (usually white stripe) = remote turn on for other equipment (amps including OEM, EQs, etc.) NOT REQUIRED for headunit to turn on.

blue wire = power antenna. NOT REQUIRED.

Orange = illumination (also called dimmer wire). NOT REQUIRED.


Disconnect all your wires. Hook up the red, yellow, and black wires. Turn on the headunit. If it comes on then disconnect battery and continue installing the remaining wires. If it does not come on then:
- you have a blown fuse somewhere or forgot to install it in the headunit.
- you have a faulty headunit

BlackMenace: FYI, I have an OEM power antenna. I'm guessing that only comes on Spyders :dunno: It sucks though as my HU doesn't have a seperate power antenna wire :angryazn: I have to wire it to my remote wire if I want it to raise up fr better reception. Just sucks because it comes up even when it is not needed.

 

Even better.

Other thing I didn't think of was a blown fuse under the hood. Have you checked the red fuse in the yellow holder to see if you didn't fry it?

That would suck. I never recalled seeing a power antenna on Spyders.:dunno: I don't see alot of them either in these parts. :lol: I always thought they were "built" in somewhere. Interesting. Going by his avatar pic, I was guessing of no Spyder, even though I wasn't aware of that model possibility.

But I strongly agree with your points. You basically just reinterated AgentSkully and I on a more black and white level, stressing more about getting the unit power with what is necessary. :yesway: Sound can come later once the deck is proven to work. I believe on the yellow wire (memory) there is a black plastic attachment so the red wire like you stated is the correct one for ignition. I think for the time being just to see if this deck powers up, he should be able to connect just the red wire and the ground. It should at least light up at that point. Me personally he doesn't have a good ground at all. It sucks I don't have my car to look at.

 

:agreed: 99% chance it is a bad headunit ground or blown fuse. Normally I would say that only the red and the black wire had to be hooked up in order to power on the headunit. But I recall installing one unit a couple years ago where the yellow (memory/constant) wire HAD to be getting power in order to power on the unit. Seemed odd... still does LOL.



If the headunit (and headunit's harness - no need for Metra adapter) can EASILY be removed from the cabin then try this to verify the unit itself is good:
1) splice headunit's yellow and red wire together.
2) attach ground/black wire to car chassis or negative batt terminal.
3) attach red/yellow wires directly to the positive battery terminal.
4) Hit the power button on the headunit. If no response then go get it replaced or get your $ back :yesway: If it does respond (clock shows, or ANYTHING similar) then you know the problem is with your wiring. Time to invest in a field service manual and a DMM (or at least a voltmeter).

I do feel that grounding to the steering column sounds unusual to me. I wouldn't bother with that. I can't confirm that column actually has a grounding path the the chassis. Look around the lower cubby area (particularly on the pass side by or just under the carpet). You will see a bolt that connects several black wires to the car chassis. Loosen that bolt and wrap your exposed grounding wire around the bolt threads. Run the bolt back through the OEM grounding wire terminal/s and tighten it down. You iknow have a KNOWN "good" ground. If the headunit works after this then you know your issue was simply ground related. Then go and clean up that area and make a more permanent ground (use a ring terminal on your wire, clean any debris/dirt from around the bolt and bolt hole, then reattach.)

I'm positive that if you follow the advice in this thread (advice where MORE than one person suggests it) then we will get to the bottom of your issue. Plenty of smart and experienced audio installers here to help! I highly suggest not worrying about the RCAs, rem wire, dimmer, etc until you are able to get the unit powered on.

 

ok, so i read everyones posts and went out and tried everything one by one and i finally came to a conclusion. but first, just to fill you guys in, the only way i could get my head unit to work, was to have the remotes hooked up, the ground hooked up, and the rca's with the big circle connector. then i connected the 2 red and the 2 yellow ALL TOGETHER, and i left the orange(illumination), and blue(power antenna) hanging. i knew this wasnt right, but i was so pumped to see this thing finally work, and i installed it. so i go out, cruising around listening to my new head unit, having a good time. i end up going to walmart. i get out, shut my door, and walk a couple feet and lock my doors with my remote. i hear no horn. i try again, and nothing. so i walk over and lock my door by hand, and the passenger door didnt lock with it. i also realized my dome lights on my mirror didnt turn on when my door was open. so i start my car, and everything works just fine. then i check my headunit, and notice all of my presets are gone, and the two clocks are both reset. so basically, what this is showing, is everything resets each time i shut my car off. i go back home, tear it all apart again, and have my friend come over this time with his dvo. testing every wire, and terminal we can find, we ended up finding one with no current going through it. we took the harness out of the headunit, and and the one that doesnt have any current is the one that the red wire connects to. so basically, this is leaving an open circuit, resetting everything everytime i shut off my car. im bringing this back to best buy and im gonna find another pioneer somewhere because i really like the ipod connection. anyone have any favorite pioneer head units they recommend? i just want to get a good head unit installed, and start working on other fun stuff on my car, like eibach sportlines and kyb agx

 

ok, so i read everyones posts and went out and tried everything one by one and i finally came to a conclusion. but first, just to fill you guys in, the only way i could get my head unit to work, was to have the remotes hooked up, the ground hooked up, and the rca's with the big circle connector. then i connected the 2 red and the 2 yellow ALL TOGETHER, and i left the orange(illumination), and blue(power antenna) hanging. i knew this wasnt right, but i was so pumped to see this thing finally work, and i installed it. so i go out, cruising around listening to my new head unit, having a good time. i end up going to walmart. i get out, shut my door, and walk a couple feet and lock my doors with my remote. i hear no horn. i try again, and nothing. so i walk over and lock my door by hand, and the passenger door didnt lock with it. i also realized my dome lights on my mirror didnt turn on when my door was open. so i start my car, and everything works just fine. then i check my headunit, and notice all of my presets are gone, and the two clocks are both reset. so basically, what this is showing, is everything resets each time i shut my car off. i go back home, tear it all apart again, and have my friend come over this time with his dvo. testing every wire, and terminal we can find, we ended up finding one with no current going through it. we took the harness out of the headunit, and and the one that doesnt have any current is the one that the red wire connects to. so basically, this is leaving an open circuit, resetting everything everytime i shut off my car. im bringing this back to best buy and im gonna find another pioneer somewhere because i really like the ipod connection. anyone have any favorite pioneer head units they recommend? i just want to get a good head unit installed, and start working on other fun stuff on my car, like eibach sportlines and kyb agx

You really shouldn't have done that. The yellow wire and red wire are for obvious reasons, 2 different wires. Yes both are hot or "live", but we never said hook them up together. That can cause internal damage to the deck and burn out the electronic board inside, (soder)sp? Yellow is the memory for the functions of the deck. (clock,stations, presets, etc) And when you said that it wasn't remembering anything, it was more than likely being interferred with the red wire, or visa versa and fryed the memory aspect of the radio, or anything else. Like anything that requires power, you only need a hot source and ground to work. We don't care about your sound right now because you had no power to the unit itself. The wires are coded for a reason and need to be connected accordingly. Granted I don't know anything about this Metra harness but all aftermarket decks are designed to connect in almost a universal way. Red to red. Yellow to yellow. Blue to blue, etc. Your ground wire IMO should be connected to the ground wire that came off your stock HU. Wire nut them together, or soder.(?) You could have fryed the deck by installing it the first time before you posted the info, or you could have bought a faulty deck, used.

it doesnt really take a genious to figure out that i didnt know what i was doing. if i knew what i was doing, i wouldnt have have posted this thread now would i? thank you everyone else for the help. i will update what i did tonight later after work.

oh and btw ncspydergt, as of reading your last post, first theres a 99% chance its the headunit, then a 99% chance i did something wrong. 99+99 doesnt quite equal up to 100 in my book.

Try not be arrogant about the situation, otherwise you will continue to buy new decks, or you will spend money up the ass paying to have it installed. Most of us enjoy having a nice stereo and myself is one of them. We know how frustrating it can be when something is not working right. Be patient, take a breath and think steps through. But if you don't understand how things work or why, don't just do. When you keep doing this that and the other, you make it more difficult to pinpoint where the issues are. We want to help, but if you continue to do the opposite, you'll be like the kid who cries wolf and nobody will care.

 

Well that sucks to hear but it's good to know. I think it's a low % to buy a bad deck but you never want to leave out that possibility. Unfortunately it seems like you fell into that percentage. I'm not too familiar with Pioneer decks so hopefully someone can refer you to one, or something similar.

 

Chances are this is your wiring error and not the HU. I say this because, as stated above, the YELLOW is the constant wire to the HU (constant means it's the one that remembers your presets.). The RED is the 12v turn-on that sends power to the HU when the battery is turned on. So, maybe you mixed up the two wires somehow, check into that.

In my experience, almost 99.9% of defects are user error when it comes to car audio. At least when you do it yourself.

 

That very well could be true, but he did say that he matched the yellow and red wires at first. 9 times out of 10 if there is a bad hook up somewhere, you normally pop the fuse to the deck or car, or both. If his ignition wire on the deck is faulty, it very well could be a manufacturer issue.

 

i just read through all the posts and realized i didnt give one piece of information. when i bought it at best buy, it was used. ive never seen that before, but they had headunits on sale there with some accessories. but i asked the guy if they had defects, and he said no. just to make sure, i asked him if i could still return it if something was wrong and he said yes. im sorry i didnt mention that before, i dont know why i didnt. but before, and after i did the installation, i checked the fuse on the headunit, the fuses in the side of my dash, and the fuses under the hood. is there anything else i could have messed up? because i like the headunit, but i will take it back if i know im positive that the headunit is the problem. chances are it is because it was used. they probably just figured they could sell it again and the next person wouldve thought it was their problem.

 

I find it hard to believe that the HU was faulty (when you bought it). The fact that it was removed from the package means that BB should have tested it before putting it back out on the floor, for sale. I'm 99% sure they test that returned stuff.

Find someone who knows how to install an HU and have them do it. You (and/or your friend) hooked your ignition circuit (red) to a constant source of power (yellow) and then went driving around like it was fixed. I don't recall that being a suggestion in this thread... good luck with your return or future install.

:wavey:


BTW, there is not a deck out there that requires the REM or the RCAs to be hooked up before it will power on. You are either confused or didn't know what you were doing or looking at.

 

you beat me!

 

it doesnt really take a genious to figure out that i didnt know what i was doing. if i knew what i was doing, i wouldnt have have posted this thread now would i? thank you everyone else for the help. i will update what i did tonight later after work.

oh and btw ncspydergt, as of reading your last post, first theres a 99% chance its the headunit, then a 99% chance i did something wrong. 99+99 doesnt quite equal up to 100 in my book.

 

obviously u dont want my advice.... so DIAF :yesway:

oh and btw ncspydergt, as of reading your last post, first theres a 99% chance its the headunit, then a 99% chance i did something wrong. 99+99 doesnt quite equal up to 100 in my book.

:twitch: I see your math is good but your reading comprehension is :crap:

99% chance it is a bad headunit ground or blown fuse.

I never said the headunit was bad. I said the wiring (specifically the ground wire) was most likely bad/wrong. :twitch: I'm confident the HU was working fine when you bought it but who knows if its still alive at this point.

it doesnt really take a genious to figure out that i didnt know what i was doing. if i knew what i was doing, i wouldnt have have posted this thread now would i?

I agree with that. But why ask for help if you aren't going to follow the advice? Everyone said "Try this and post the results". You tried this and that and then said fuck it and went for a drive like everything was good to go just because the unit powered on with the wiring harness hooked up in a way that we ALL knew was incorrect. That resulted in more blown fuses or other issues and now those need to be sorted out as well.... You'll have to forgive my aggitation... I've already taken the time to list the procedures you could use to test the unit and from the looks of things you took what advice you deemed necessary and disregarded the rest. So now your unit still doesn't work and you are posting for more help with even more issues.
:uh:

Just go back to post #2 and try re-troubleshooting. Do one thing at a time and post up the results. I'm sure someone else will be glad to chime in once you have posted up some relevant info. I've already posted everything you need to do in order to find the problem so I have nothing else to add.