Anyone good with wiring up a head unit? I just got my new head unit last night (along with new speakers) and I’m having trouble getting it to work properly. Here’s where I stand at the moment: once everything is plugged in, the head unit will turn on, scan for stations, turn on/off (without the key in), but no music will come out of the speakers. Only at the highest volume level of the head unit will anything come from the speakers. Even then, you have to listen very very hard to hear anything. This makes me think there is no power going to the speakers. Here is the cluster f*ck wiring harness I’m using:
I’m not used to having to use a relay so I’m getting thrown off. Everything that is in the original wiring harness of the car has a place to plug into except for the single little brown “harness” pictured here (3rd plug):
I honestly have no idea what that is for. It appears to be a ground wire that connected to the original stereo?
If anyone has a clue as to what I’m doing wrong I would love to know. Thanks!
Investigate ‘speed harnesses’ available at Circuit City Road Shops. For about $30 they sell ‘A’ and ‘B’ sides to a harness that makes it so easy, no cutting, just plug and play. Tell them the head unit you have and the year/model of your Audi.
I know that I have everything that I need so I would rather not spend the extra money. It’s a good last option, until then, it’s a puzzle that I need to solve.
that’s what i’m guessing. it seems like everyone i talk to has a different story for what to do. no one can give me a straight answer on the factory amp. to me, this is what it seems like. the only problem is, i haven’t a clue which wire is the remote turn-on for the amp.
so i’ve quickly found out that they are a huge pain in the ass. as i said above, everyone has a different answer.
i messed with it all last night and still nothing. if this keeps up, looks like i may be going to visit chaz one of these days.
Maybe the brown plug is the remote turn on. Did you check any Audi forums? Crutchfield.com might have some different harnesses you can look at to compare. What kinda speaker system is in the car? Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out, just gotta dig up some more information.
i install car audio products daily and have no clue what the hell you’re using that relay for. haven’t seen that one yet. the blue with white stripe is your remote turn on from the radio. yes you have a factory amp. get me a year make and model and i’ll try my very best for some wiring diagrams for you. and if you could clarify the wire colors you have in that audi harness it would be nice too.
I have tried connecting the remote turn-on to that brown wire and it was a no go. Yes, I have searched every Audi forum I can find and every one seems to have a different answer. I got everything from Crutchfield and this is the harness they provided me. The stock speakers? I actually ordered some Polk’s to replace all the stock speakers but I would like to get the HU working before I move on to that stuff.
All four speakers installed along with the HU. Front two speakers work just fine so obviously the HU works as well. However, the rear speakers still aren’t playing any tunes.
I attempted to use a “harness” that I made to connect the rears to the stock speaker wiring. The problem is, I still have no idea how to hook up the (-)'s from the speakers as the Audi uses a common grounding system. I have attempted to connect them to their matching (FR to RR, FL to RL) but that only made the front speakers crackle. I attempted to hook the (-)'s up to the grounding wire and this caused all speakers to shut off.
Any help that you can provide would be huge. Right now I’m rockin’ the front two speakers but would much appreciate the back ones to work properly as well.
yup…i ripped apart the door panel and started messing around with the multimeter that i had. then i took a spare speaker and just started touching wires to each contact. turns out i had the wire leads in the doors in the wrong place in the harness. the wiring harness that goes to the speaker is actually two pieces, one for the built in amp and the other for the speaker. i guess i had them originally plugged into the wrong one!
i was attempting to use a relay because crutchfield said i needed it. yeh…they were wrong.
fmfkid…thanks for the help. no one had a diagram to help me out so i just went with the good old trial and error method.
i have no idea why those wires were cut behind the harness. the guy i bought the car from said the original owner had done that which i find hard to believe. it looks like someone got 2 out of the 3 harnesses needed and just spliced into the extra wiring harness.
