Help installing aftermarket car stereo/deck

Thanks for the reply!

I matched all the wires between the harness I purchased and the wires that came with the deck, but there were a couple leftovers:

- a black wire from the deck
- an orange (non-striped) wire from the deck

I just left those as I was unsure of where they went.

Also, there was a red wire on both the deck wiring and the harness. This leaves me at a loss for where the 12V red wire goes that came with the harness. To I connect all three red wires (12V to fuse, from harness, from deck)?

There was also the black ground wire from the deck. Does this need to be grounded to something for the stereo to function? Or should I chop it and hook it up to the black wire that's open in the harness?

Dmanj said:

Sorry for not replying sooner, I've had a load of school work to do.

First, the dash issue. If you remove the fuse tap and just put the original fuse back in, does that solve the issue or is it still there? If its still there, try putting the OEM radio back in and see if that fixes the issue. If it does, I would bet the harness is causing the issue.

As for the sound issue. Thats a tough call. I'd make sure all the settings in your radio are correct. If they are, my next test would be to check the voltage on the speaker wires behind the radio. You should have 2 green, 2 purple, 2 grey and 2 white wires coming out of the radio. Each set will have 1 wire with a black tracer on it. The one with the tracer is your negative, while the solid one is your positive. Turn your volume up about half way and measure the AC voltage across the wires. If there is nothing there, the issue is with the radio. If there is something there, I would bet the issue is with the harness.

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Hey man, no harm no foul. I appreciate that you've got school work to do. Priorities. I'm just thankful for the help.

Dash issue: if I remove the fuse tap, the issue fixes itself. I've also narrowed it down slightly: when the fuse is tapped and the stereo is hooked up, there's a couple second delay before it gets power when I turn the car on. For those couple seconds, the dash indicators work. As soon as the stereo comes on POOF the needles all die. This same thing happened when I just had the cheap tap that came with the harness. I've got no idea what's up here. Only thing I can think of is that maybe the stereo isn't getting enough power? It's on a 10-amp fuse though, and the add a circuit I got only supports a max of 10A. Then again, I know so little about electrical I may be talking out my rear.

Sound issue: I've checked the stereo for any settings and they seem to be good. I read in another post something about the guy having to send the sound out the normal wires instead of the RCA jacks and that solved his issue, but I've been unable to find something like that. I'll give it another go over though. I'll try and measure the voltages tomorrow and see what's going on. What am I looking for from each wire in terms of voltage? Anything? Or a specific value. I've got the OEM stereo in, and everything works fine.

If it's an issue with that damn harness, then I'm gonna just go the route of hard-wiring. Which I will need more help with, because the wires don't all match up. If the issue is the harness, is it likely that hard-wiring the speakers should solve that issue?

Dmanj said:

The radio should be fine with the 10A fuse. I would start by trying a different fuse to tap into and see if that fixes it.

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Tried to tap into AIRBAG (IGN) and the same thing happened. It wasn't necessarily when the stereo turned on, but when it tried to play a CD that everything went kaput. I forgot to turn the car off when I pulled the tap out of the ignition, and when I pulled it out you could instantly see everything shoot to life. So I have no idea what's going on. Totally lost. Not good at this kind of electrical stuff at all.

For the sound, you only use the RCAs if you have an amp attached to the radio. Otherwise the sound needs to go out the regular wires (your green, white, grey and purple). When checking the voltage, you are not looking for any specific value as that is volume dependant. You just want to know that it is there.

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It would appear that there is something coming out of the speakers. I just uncovered the green wires and tested them, and it shot anywhere from 0 to 1.8A, averaging around 0.3A. This was before the harness connection, though. I'm not sure how I would test whether or not there is any signal getting past the harness without stripping wires.

I would advise not hardwiring to the car harness. Not only will it be worse than this experience, but it could cause even more problems.

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That is exactly what I didn't want to hear. If the harness is a POS, which it appears it is, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Literally the only harness I could find that came out and said "yes, it will work with your make/model" was on eBay. I couldn't find any from any reputable dealers (like Crutchfield), so I went to eBay. I found this one from Crutchfield, but when I put my car into the car selector thing it tells me it doesn't fit. There's this one but, again, it says it's for a 2006 G7, whereas I have the 2007. I found this thread on the site of a guy going directly into the wires with, what it seems, some success. Then again, that doesn't solve the problem of the power tripping or whatever is happening.

This whole mess of an ordeal is getting me super frustrated. And the only solutions ever seem to be "throw more money at it and buy X and Y."

It's to the point now where I'm considering just driving the car and the deck to a car audio place and leaving it there and telling them to do it. I'd rather pay out all at once then keep trying to piece away at it, spending the same amount of money anyway. Do places like Carphonix even do that? Let you show up with your own stereo?

JJBoxer1 said:

Well got my bubble bust today, I went to see about getting my new stereo install, had all the parts, then dude told me that I needed this Metra 95-3303B, in order to keep the info on the car, this thing cost $229.00 to $299.00, now I'm pissed and wondering if I should just get rid of the GPS, DVD, SD card slot, Ipod connect, Bluetooth, backup camera, system or just get rid of my G6.

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Well, first thing's first I would get a second opinion.

Other than that, I share your pain. Unless you want to keep the DIC (all the info), you shouldn't need the Metra kit. It's handy, but not essential, so I'm willing to go without. You've got quite a few extra things there, whereas I'm just looking at a simple double DIN deck, so I don't know what else you may need, if the Metra kit is a necessity.

But for me, it should work without the Metra. I'm at the same point as you; looking around town to see how much a professional install will cost. The place I'm talking to brought up the Metra kit. I told them I'm not interested in keeping the DIC, and they have yet to get back to me. If they say it's essential, I'm going elsewhere. If I get the same second opinion, the stereo is going back. Unfortunately I can't get rid of the G6 just yet, but it's just another reason not to keep it.