Where can I find a Car Stereo Installation Guide for a 1999 Mitsubishi Mirage?

October 5, 2007 10:52 AM

Where can I find a Car Stereo Installation Guide for a 1999 Mitsubishi Mirage?

I bought a Sony Xplod back in February of this year. The Auxiliary jack on the front that I plug my iPod into has already broken so that I only get audio out of one channel. It's still under warranty, but the store that sold it to me has washed their hands of it, and Sony wants me to send the thing back to them at a shipping cost of about 10% of the value of the radio (to say nothing of whatever hassle is involved in getting it out of there and being without a stereo for who knows how long).

I think I should be able to plug the iPod into the back of the thing, but I'm not sure how to get all the plastic trim stuff off to expose the guts of the wiring in a way that would allow me to put it all back the way I found it.

Seems like there should be a guide of some kind on the internet, but I haven't been able to find one yet. This Question mentioned Dr. Install, but they don't have a guide for a Mirage.

posted by willnot to technology (8 comments total)

You can get one from Crutchfield but it will set you back $5.
posted by JJ86 at 10:59 AM on October 5, 2007

I think I should be able to plug the iPod into the back of the thing

Why do you think this? There is almost no chance that this is true.
posted by The World Famous at 10:59 AM on October 5, 2007

This isn't really answering your question, but have you tried cleaning the jack on the front, and using a different cable to connect the iPod to the radio? Before you start taking your dash apart, it's probably worth giving it a try.

Now, something closer to an answer: you'd be okay with a Chilton or Haynes manual. You can buy one at a local Autozone or similar, or from Amazon, or you can get one from your local public library. Chilton has online versions of its manuals, but they're subscription databases.

And something closer to a caveat: unless you know for a fact that your receiver has a rear auxiliary jack, it probably doesn't. That's not to say it would be impossible to rig something up, but it will neither be as easy nor as cheap as you're anticipating.

One more caveat: be careful taking your dashboard apart. Most of them feature easily-breakable tabs, confusing interlocking designs, weird fasteners, all kinds of crazy crap. It's easy to accidentally break something, and then you'll either have a perma-rattle, a trip to the junkyard (and parts that don't quite match) or an expensive repair.
posted by box at 11:07 AM on October 5, 2007

I've also found e-bay and amazon to be good sources of used shop manuals (as well as chilton's guides and such that might be hard to come by in the stores).

Also, this guy seems to have come up with a way to connect an ipod to a factory radio w/o an aux jack. So it can be done, depending on your willingness to futz around with wiring and such. I've seen other mods that require tapping the circuit board of the radio, but such is well beyond my ken.
posted by jquinby at 11:18 AM on October 5, 2007

I think I should be able to plug the iPod into the back because the Unilink CD Changer/iPod Connector that the stereo is compatible with appears to have standard RCA jacks, so I'm assuming -- perhaps incorrectly that a mini-plug to stereo cable should be able to plug into the back.

I guess it's possible those are proprietary plugs that just sort of look like RCA jacks. That would certainly be a Sony kind of thing to do, but it looks workable to me, so it seemed like it was worth a try.
posted by willnot at 11:23 AM on October 5, 2007

What's the model of the Sony radio? Should be easy to check the specs and find out if it has a rear aux input or not. That's the first step.

After that, if it does have a rear aux input, check out the mirageforums.net discussion board. There's a section on interior mods that more than likely has info on changing a head unit.
posted by PFL at 11:38 AM on October 5, 2007

It's a CDXGT310 .
posted by willnot at 12:51 PM on October 5, 2007

I don't think that one has a rear input. I helped a friend install a Sony with a similar rear connection for the CD changer and found that it was only active when A CD changer was connected. YMMV

In other news many stereos are installed with quick release. Is there a plastic trim around yours which reveals an installation slot. Did you get two slim pieces of metal with the CD player to allow it to be slip out?
posted by imjosh at 1:35 PM on October 5, 2007