wbrault

I have a base 4 door sedan, of course a cobalt and installing a Jensen vm9510 7inch widescreen cd/dvd player. I do have some exp. in installing aftermarket radios, and a friend that helped me does it all the time. He actually just got done his 2003 silverado. Now I know he had to buy an adapter for door chimes. BUT my door chimes worked while the factory stereo was unplugged. Anyways, please read on

I eventually got all the wires together for the aftermarket radio and the wiring harness that plugs into the factory one.

For some reason, after I plugged the harness into the aftermarket radio and turned on the car. All my displays wouldn't work.. it just showed up as -------------------------------- The gas guage wouldn't even read, it was at empty. The door chimes didn't work either but they work when nothing is plugged in(just a big whole in the dash because there is no stereo installed)

I turned the car off, unplugged the aftermarket radio. Turned the car on and it was fine.

I did not attempt to plug the aftermarket radio back in considering something wasn't right. Now I am trying to do some research and I can't find any info. Hopefully this forum will give me some direction.

It is early in the morning, about 8, I am going to call the local car stereo place to get some info when they open(they installed my car alarm and did my tint and have a great reputation for mobile audio/video). Maybe just have them install it.

Before I do that I want information on why this happened and what I might have missed. After work I am going to triple check my wiring, since I already double checked.

I put the factory radio back in for now and everything is fine.

The only damage done to the car was there is a piece of plastic that is behind the factory unit. I cut that out and there was a metal bracket with 3 bolts in. I only cut the plastic and just unbolted the bracket for if I ever put the factory one back in. I had to do this because the aftermarket was just a little bit to long.

Thanks for reading

wbrault

lilngineer

The pinouts should be the same for the base and premium system. Only software changes to make it line-out for the amp.

I can say that my system is working fine without the factory radio in the car. I did wire my harness manually, however to interface with the pioneer system.

Anyhow, I can give you the pinouts I know for the radio. Maybe from that you can double check what is going on? On my vehicle, I believe only the XM module is LAN controlled. My display/chimes work fine

wbrault

Im not sure whats going on .. you tell me its running fine, why the heack are all these people telling me it isnt possible.

The only manual thing i did was wire the aftermarket radio with the wiring harness that goes on to the factory.

Give me the info you got and Ill try going off by that to see if I can find anything.

Thanks for the reply.

wbrault

well I give up, i cant get any info. to new of a car i guess

i am going to the car stereo place tomorrow to have them do it.

Chevy4Life85

If you cant find the info they cant.... make sure its a good place or your car mihgt get a nice hack job... trust me I learned the hard way a few years ago now I do everything myself or at a very custom place.

wbrault

thanks for the heads up.

i do feel confident about them. they been around a very long time and a great reputation, not sure if that means much. they been doing some work to my car and have been doing a really nice job thus far.

Chevy4Life85

Small place... or a circuit city like place?

As long as its not a chain type store... with some 17 year old kid installing it you should be fine... just make it clear to them you want it done right

wbrault

haha no, no chain store. they have two stores that I know of, one in my town and one a little bit more south(45mins) of me.

I think their website is asinstallation.com

The guy that is doing it, I know has a degree in electrical stuff. but sometimes that dont matter. A few people I know know him and have said nothing but good things about him. He does seem very straight up as well.

And so far everything they have done, I have stood there and watched, asked questions etc.

Z24driver1986

I think i know ur problem... you probably hooked up the LAN wire to the 12V switched iginition.. that might be causing ur trouble. Check all the wiring and any wiring that u are unsure of unplug and try again.
I posted this base schematic since i figured u had a base cobalt with the base stereo. If you can't see it . right click and save as then open it on your comp and zoom in.

wbrault

I didn't get to look at it but THANK YOU just for taking the time.

I am going to look at it now but I think I am still just going right down to the shop tomorrow.

Ill let you know if I spot something though.

thanks everyone for the help

wbrault

ok i saved it, but when i zoom it isn't clear at all.

ill try to work with it but if you can please email it to me

wbrault@gmail.com

zinner

I have been reading about the GM LAN system for other reason. If the radio has a link into the GM LAN it's possible by shorting on or disrupting that system when hooking up the radio you could easily disable all sorts of systems on the car. The idea of the GM Lan is to interconnect all the vehicle systems over a command bus. If you disrupt that bus you could prevent all the GM lan systems from operating as well. Just a thought.

I am still learning about all this stuff but I thought I could at least suggest it.

zinner

more than likely our gallery system resized the image to the original is lost.

I can't zoom in on the image either. I think we are viewing it at full res inside the thread.

wbrault

zinner,

what your saying makes sense. but im not sure if this is the case. reason i think that is because even with the factory pulled out of the dash, harness unplugged. everything still works.

but if i attempt to plug in the aftermarket radio, the displays will not work. but as soon as i unplug the aftermarket radio it goes back to normal.

everything works with or without the factory stereo plugged in


so with what your saying, could this still be the case?

lilngineer

I can't speak for anybody else, but I was able to remove my head unit completely without any loss of function (other than steering wheel controls).

What do you have the aftermarket accessory lead (red wire) hook to? There is no switched power in the vehicle radio harness. Turn on and off is accomplished over LAN with the factory head unit. You have to tap into the fuse box below for a switched accessory line. I used the sunroof fuse.

I will email you the radio pinout

wbrault

anxiously waiting for your email

btw I did have the red wire connected in the fuse box

cant remember where, did you need to put in another fuse?

i was using a multi meter. and the only place i got a good charge from was from other wires that were already plugged in but not from any of the emptys

wbrault

WELL the problem was with the harness that i bought from BESTBUY

they sold me the wrong one. after hours of thinking i looked at the factory harness and the harness i bought. the pins do not line up, if you know what i mean

so i guess when i was plugging it in i was shorten something. i got a new harness, right harness. and it works great. didnt lose any controls or anything!

thanks for those who have tried to help!

Z24driver1986

what a bunch of morons they could have messed up your car bad.. i went there to ask for a harness for 01 Cavalier they pointed me to the harnesses on the wall which were for the 95-99 Cavaliers.

zinner

It's bestbuy people. Why on earth would you expect them to have any idea about the stuff they sell? Bestbuy is a discount electronics place that has lower prices cause everyone working there is making 5.85 an hour. Duh!

Chevy4Life85

^^^^ Minimum wage is 7.00/hr here and they want to raise it higher but still the same applies they are cheap and so is the service

mken

This may be a dumb question, it always turns out to be something easy, but how the hell do you get that trim plate off around the radio? I figured it would pop right off, the same kind of metal clips the silver trim above the glove box uses (would make sense, but this is GM). But after pulling hard on the trim plate, and not being able to see how it's held on, I'm afraid of breaking something.

banginbalt

I used a flat head screwdriver and wrapped it in ducktape so i didnt scratch the trim....it was a beeotch to say the least......

I do have a question on what wiring harness you used...the ******** at bestbuy sold me the wrong one too.

Co27SSKid

I worked at best buy till 2 weeks ago. I worked there part time while I was goin to school, I was at 10.70 pt, but the only reason I stayed for as long as I did, was the discount man. Car audio was awesome. I worked in the Tv's, where the discount was also great. But alot of the installers aren't that great. We had one really good guy, and every 1 else would just ask him if there was an actuall problem. I guess U just need to know what U want when ya get there, then ya can save the few $$$ at the store. Good luck with that jensen man, I was lookin at gettin one of them for my Balt When it comes in!

- ruSSo 29