I Really Need Some Help With A Car Stereo. LIKE SERIOUS HELP
Posted in Car Electronics | Asked on Jan 5, 2012
Ok, so here is what is going on. My mom is going through a rough spot right now, and to top it all off someone broke into her car, and jacked her stereo. Which was a really nice Alpine deck. That was about 2 months ago, and I decided to install one of my older decks from a past car into her Toyota. She has a 2008 Toyota Yaris. NOW, here’s the problem…I have connected the all the cables correctly using a universal harness, and have even had a friend help me with it. So now, the radio will not turn on in her car. It will in mine, but not hers. So i checked the fuse; perfect. The fuse actually powers her lights as well, and the weren’t off at all. So I tested the factory wiring harness in her dash, and there was the problem. It wasn’t holding any voltage, even when the car was on, and running. She cant afford to get it fixed. So I am going to tap the power off of her DC cigarette lighter to power her stereo. How do I do that…? hah. Can i modify a basic phone charger for a car, or what power wire on the back of the deck would I even connect…? By the way, its a Sony CDX-CA700X. Please help me…
its not the stereo at all. if the factory harness isn’t holding any charge at all, in any type of condition, then there’s no reason to waste more money on a new deck that wont power up either; since the factory harness wont draw the power up. I know a lot about cars, I just haven’t made an alt power route off a DC power source yet.
There are 5 Answers for "I Really Need Some Help With A Car Stereo. LIKE SERIOUS HELP"
Hmm what you can do is buy a new battery and hook it up directly to the stereo.
but you should also see if its the stereo try another stereo and see if it works and if it does then the stereo your trying to put in her car probably only works in certain types of cars.
This should be a simple fix. i used to hook up all my wires to harness that plugs into the factory harness. i never had a problem, until i was hooking up a new pioneer in my van. i rechecked all my connections and fuses 5 or 6 times.
i then realized that the GROUND WIRE in the aftermarket harness went into an empty slot in the factory harness. THE FIX WAS I RAN A GROUND WIRE TO THE CD PLAYER TO A BOLT. it worked fine.
many people don’t even hook up a ground on the cd player. they run 2 power wires and in MOST cases the antenna has a strong enough ground to make it work. BUT ALWAYS RUN A GROUND WIRE DIRECTLY TO A METAL BOLT.
Do you have a test light or volt meter? You need to find two power sources and a good ground.
Most stereos will have a red and yellow wire. The red one needs 12V constant or battery and the yellow one needs 12V only when the key is on. You just need to test your wires and find the correct ones to hook up too. You also need to make sure the black wire is hooked up to a good ground on the car.
Make sure the ground and power wire is connected and working to the deck. ground the wire from the radio to a bolt on your car and/or connect it to the ground wire from the harness coming from the car. also the power wire. if thats the wire that isnt sending any power to the deck then you can always just tap into a fuse in the car that turns on when the car turns on. i had to tap into a fuse in my car since the wire harness’ power wire was in the wrong place so it never connected to any wire from my car. after i did that everything worked perfectly
Assuming that you’re correct and that running a new power wire from the cigarette lighter will fix your problem, the best way is probably to find the feed wires at the back of the cigarette lighter, and tap into the power wire. There should be two wires at the cig lighter plug; one’s ground, and one’s power. A test light or multimeter will show you which is which. Just tap a wire into the cigarette lighter power wire, and run it up to your radio.
Now, with that said: there are two power wires in the factory radio harness, one for constant power, and one for key-switched power. Each has its own fuse. Which one isn’t testing with voltage at the harness? It sounds like you’ve checked the fuse for the constant power feed, but the cigarette lighter is probably key-switched. If it’s the key-switched power wire that isn’t working, have you checked that fuse? It’s labeled “ACC” in the fuse box under the driver’s side dash. If it’s the constant power feed that’s not working, then tapping the cigarette lighter probably won’t help you–you need a constant voltage source to keep the new radio’s clock and station presets working.