How do I install a car stereo?

September 27, 2005 10:17 PM

I am looking for advice on installing car stereos.

I've searched hi and low and haven't been able to find any (free) good tutorials for installing car stereos. Normally I would just base my installation off the original install, unfortunately it was stolen. Luckily they didn't mess up the base connectors, so I am good to go. Sort of...

I have the right harness and kit, but there is one connector I am particularly suspicious of. It is black, about 1 1/4 cm wide and starts off rectangular & bulky and ends up flat.

Any advice besides "take it to a pro" would be helpful.

posted by gaelenh to grab bag (9 comments total)

Don't have time to give general advice right now, but Install Dr. is a good site for info about this. Also it would help responders to know what kind of car you have.
posted by knave at 10:22 PM on September 27, 2005

Sorry, the car is a Subaru WRX 2002.
posted by gaelenh at 10:26 PM on September 27, 2005

Advice for next time, or other readers: buy it from Crutchfield. Unless they've gone deeply downhill since 2000, all of their car stereos come with the necessary harnesses and a detailed set of instructions for your year, make, and model of car, and they'll tell you if you need a tool. Their prices are okay but not fabulous.

You might try calling them and see if they'll sell you an instruction sheet, or give you one to impress you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:56 PM on September 27, 2005

Typically, a stereo install is pretty easy, speakers are the tricky part, at least in newer cars.

If you're wondering about what this wire does, get a multimeter. Hook the red (+) lead to this wire and the black (-) lead to the chassis of the car or some known ground. My guess is that, because it's black, it's a ground (you'll read 0 volts). In any case, your stereo should come with schematics. See if there's another ground hooked up (maybe your old stereo had two for some reason). If it isn't a ground, try to see what other places it could possible go to based on the schematic (e.g., if you're reading 10V, see what other spots ask for 10V. Are they filled?).

If you're really worried, go through the schematic and make sure that every input has a wire corresponding to it at the right voltage (oh, disconnect the stereo and turn the car on before checking any of this). Typically, you'll need two for power (+12, 0), one that tells it when the car is on (+12), lines going to your tape deck/cd player, etc., speaker lines, and an antenna line (I suppose this suspicious one could be your antenna).

If all your voltages are right (and the thing works), don't worry about a suspicious wire. You're not going to damage anything.
posted by dsword at 12:35 AM on September 28, 2005

That connector sounds like it could be for ground. Hard to know without looking at it. Could be the antenna, though those tend to be kind of cylindrical like a small cigarette-lighter plug.

The stereo you bought should come with documentation saying what all the wires on the back are. You should be able to get documentation for your car's wiring from a service manual. These are sometimes available on the web: go look in a scooby enthusiast forum, they'll probably have a huge FAQ dedicated to stereo installation into WRXes.
posted by polyglot at 12:36 AM on September 28, 2005

ROU_Xenophobe: I've had mostly good recent experiences with Crutchfield, although it is best to wait until they are having a sale to get a good price. My only complaint is that they did not have the right harness for my 1994 Volvo 940, so I ended up having to test and solder all of the connections myself. However, my car has a factory amp that is a little annoying to bypass, and after searching around, I realized that everyone sells the wrong harness for 94 940s.

gaelenh: Is the connector you're worried about one of the ones coming out of the dash, or one of the ones supplied with your new stereo harness? If all of your new stereo connectors plug into corresponding car harnesses without any problems, and there is an extra car connector hanging around, I wouldn't worry about it. Your new stereo probably doesn't utilize all of the car connectors. If the mystery connector is part of the stereo harness and cannot fit into anything, then that sounds like a problem. Have you tried just connecting everything you can and seeing if it works? The deck should have a fuse that will protect it, and the connectors should be shaped so that they will only mate with the correct car hookup. You don't say what makes you suspicious of the connector, or what specific problems you have had with it.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 1:00 AM on September 28, 2005

You might want to check in with one of the Subaru forums. If those don't do the trick, try googling for "wrx forum" or "subaru forum".

It's most likely these guys have already been through what you're trying to do.

I have a Forester, and the only weird connector I know of is the power to go to the antenna.
posted by SteveInMaine at 2:56 AM on September 28, 2005

Thanks everyone. I knew it wasn't ground. Turns out it's a funky antenna plug.
posted by gaelenh at 6:58 AM on September 28, 2005

Have it done professionally. Otherwise things rattle and fall off.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of unprofessional installers out there. They invariably use hot glue, which covers up their errors, soon turns loose and is impossible to remove.

The pros use hardware mounts. If you're anywhere near NYC, go to Rogers on Sunrise Highway in Hempstead. They do it right.
posted by KRS at 1:28 PM on September 28, 2005