I've got a wiring harness that has the RCA connectors for the stereo. I've got red, yellow, and orange wires on the harness that I'm not sure what to do with.

Since the wires are coming out of the harness -- which plugs into the car -- does that mean these wires are supposed to be connected to the stereo unit?

My stereo is a Pioneer Premier FH-P800BT. The manual's wiring diagram shows the 12V wires (the ones I don't know what to do with) are connected to the stereo using a cable that connects to the back of the stereo and includes speaker outputs. I'm not using those outputs and I don't have that cable.

I uploaded a pic of the back of the stereo.

 

Was your car Bose or Non-bose?
Please clarify - is the harness with the orange the one that connected to the stock harness (wire side) or is the harness with the orange RCAs the one that clips into the Pioneer?
What harness are you using? (Link and/or picture please)

I've installed with both the Metra 70-7551 (Bose) and 70-7550 (non-Bose) and neither had an orange RCA bit on it.

This is what the harnesses I've used for Bose look like (70-7551):


And non-bose (70-7550):


I don't see the harness with orange RCA included with your stereo either, so you may have picked up the wrong harness.

 

Thanks for your reply. I've got the 70-7551 for the Bose system. To clarify, the orange wire is a bare wire. I went back to the store and they gave me the harness shown in your photo with the stereo. I've now got the wires I need to hook this up.

Right now I'm actually having a hard time getting the wiring right. I can't get power to the stereo. I've got the red wire from the 70-7551 connected to the red and 2 blue wires (power antenna, amp turn-on) and the yellow to yellow. I thought that would work, but the stereo doesn't power on at all, so I'm stuck at the moment.

 

Wait, you really got to clarify here dude.

Did you wire the Red (switched power), power antenna, and amp turn-on from the stereo all together? If you did that you may have fried the stereo. The amp and power antenna wires are supposed to OUTPUT +12v to activate accessories, not to receive +12v. I hope that was just unclear and you didn't do that. If you did do this, go to step #66 to see if the unit is broken.

If you wired them together at the car side, to where you tried to make the headunit's +12v line power the amp signal wire too, then you just didn't have enough power to turn stuff on then the headunit *should* be ok, you just need to wire things up properly.

Red wire from the 70-7551 goes ONLY to the red wire from your new stereo. Nothing else.
Remote from the 70-7551 connects to the the remote from the new stereo. Some harnesses sold as equivalent to the 70-7551 mislabel the antenna and remote wires, so you end up having no sound. If everything else works and there's no sound, or there's only sound when you're on radio, you need to swap which wire from the headunit goes to the amp.

From there, connect up the audio channels, bluetooth mic and other wires and you should be good to go.

Step #66 (to see if the headunit can still power on):
Connect the yellow wire from the stereo - this should be the "Always On/memory power wire" - to the yellow wire from the 70-7551.
Connect the red wire from the stereo - this is the switched "main" power - to the red wire on the 70-7551.
Connect the black ground wire from the stereo to a solid ground.
Disconnect all other wires and turn the car to accessory.
You will not have any sound from the stereo, but the headunit should power up. If you can get the headunit to power up, you can be walked through the remaining wires.

 

Ok, I'm going to try to get the stereo powered on. Do I need to connect the two ground wires from the 70-7551 (amp ground and chassis ground) anywhere?

 

Only ground the wire with a round terminal from the head unit initially, just to make sure it still functions.

It may have a second ground wire that connects grounds the Bose headunit. You don't need that connected to power up the headunit. Wait until you confirm the headunit works first.

 

I replaced a blown fuse under the hood. I can't get the stereo to power up, but I also can't read power from either the red or yellow wires with the multimeter. I've checked all fuses under the hood and in the driver's foot panel.

Unless I'm missing something obvious I'll have to take the car in and get it installed professionally.

 

Are there any members in your area that can help you out? a lot of us here have done our own install.

 

Thanks for all your help.

Today I took the car into the shop where I bought the stereo and had them do the install. The stereo didn't power on for them either so they're getting it replaced under warranty by Pioneer and then I'll have the store complete the install. The installer didn't think anything I did caused the stereo to malfunction.

I do really appreciate your help. Following your directions to only connect the power wires and the subsequent failure to power-on got me to take it to the shop a lot quicker than I otherwise would have.

At the very least, I took this opportunity to replace my cabin air filter, which I usually neglect.

Thanks again.