Question about changing head unit.

[amdhunter]

I am bored of my stock radio, and am about to invest in an aftermarket navigation HU.

I want to try and install the HU myself - my radio seems to be able to remove easily, and I think I can handle it.

One question, will a new HU be powered by the current harness (or harness adapter) or will I have to run wires from the battery? I am thinking this is a stupid question, but I don't want to take it apart, just to find out that I can't power a new system.

I've seen how a lot of installers in my area work, and I can tell by looking that they are taking shortcuts, and I believe the only installer that will take extra care when installing a stereo is myself.

Got to learn sometime right?

 

[SpatiallyAware]

It generally pulls power from the harness.


You buy an adapter which you can solder on to the harness which comes into the head unit. This gives you a connector on each end, so there should be be wire cutting or anything like that.

In my experience this the easy part.. It's dealing with the physical install that's a pain.

 

[DaTT]

You can buy harness adapters for your vehicle specifically. All power and speaker signals come from the harness. When you buy the HU, ask the shop for a harness too, they usually run anywhere from $20-$50

 

[MixMasterTang]

Like posted above, you will most likely have to buy a wiring harness, but that will supply all of the appropriate power. The only time you'd have to worry about running extra power is if your new head unit had need for extra power, like if it had a LCD screen - even then your better option would be running a line to the fuse panel instead of to the battery. The only time you'd want to go straight to the battery is if you add an amp, the amps have fuses in them and our power hungry.

 

[amdhunter]

You can buy harness adapters for your vehicle specifically. All power and speaker signals come from the harness. When you buy the HU, ask the shop for a harness too, they usually run anywhere from $20-$50

Going to go through Crutchfield most likely. I think they offer harnesses for free if you buy something over $200.

 

[DaTT]

Going to go through Crutchfield most likely. I think they offer harnesses for free if you buy something over $200.

Bonus then. At least nowadays there is a universal colour system on wiring harnesses, back when I was into car audio, there was no such system.

 

[purbeast0]

Going to go through Crutchfield most likely. I think they offer harnesses for free if you buy something over $200.

its been probably over 8 years since I bought a HU, but i got mine from crutchfield and they offered the harness for free. i did all my installation myself too, and yea it was simple. you simply have to solder a bunch of wires together and that is it, but they provide all of the diagrams.

you simply solder your cars harness (that crutchfield provides for free) that plugs into your cars harness, to the harness (or raw wires, i don't remember) coming out of the new radio/harness. then you just plug everything in and it works.

the only time i had to actually do any wiring work was when i had my amps installed i believe. had to run the remote wire to the amp, and then splice it into the one running into the harness ... i think. it's been a long time so i may be wrong!

 

[imagoon]

You also may want to look up a random forum on your car and see what others have found. On some cars you have to deal with factory amps / other oddities like optical systems on infinity systems etc.

For example on my car the HU is all low outputs that drives a factory amp. Throwing an amplified head unit in there would blow the amp. That and my radio is hooked to the CAN bus so removing it requires a aftermarket box to make other parts of the car work again.

 

[T2urtle]

Going to go through Crutchfield most likely. I think they offer harnesses for free if you buy something over $200.

that is a bonus if you was going to buy something over $200.

I dont think i saw what kind of car that is.

But most wireharness adapters run $25 or less on ebay. THey are all the same. its really hard to screw up a piece of plastic about about 18 wires.

This is assuming you dont have a high end system like a BOSE, with a bose it might need amp harness to increase the power going to the speakers.

 

[jlee]

Crutchfield often offers installation kits for free regardless of head unit cost.

 

[amdhunter]

This is assuming you dont have a high end system like a BOSE, with a bose it might need amp harness to increase the power going to the speakers.

Yep. I wouldn't call anything BOSE high-end, but it turns out everyone keeps talking about a "BOSE adapter" to get things running right...ugh.

I am waiting for an email from a company that has a supposed genuine Mazda double-din faceplate for my 09 RX-8. Hopefully it turns out to be real, I'd really rather use something OEM, than a third party one.

 

[DaTT]

Not always, but generally speaking an OEM hole is bigger than an aftermarket double DIN so you will need an install kit. They don't look bad, they actually look stock.