So I’m a bit puzzled as to what is going on with my car. I have an 06 mt coupe, factory bose and Bluetooth. I’ve had the car for two years and replaced the Bose with an Avic x920 after the first week which has been working fine until now. I’m using a Metra 70-7551 harness and the radio will not power up if I use the ground connection on the Metra harness. I’ve gone through the following steps and have had no luck:
- Swapped in a spare Metra harness – same result.
- Plugged in an old pioneer radio I had laying around – it won’t power up either.
- Checked the radio fuse (15A in front of the battery) and it is good.

If I bypass the ground on the car’s factory harness and use a new chassis ground, both head units power up fine.

Anyone seen this issue before and have any suggestions? Any chance there is another fuse somewhere or tied to another circuit that I may be missing?

Thanks in advance.

-Raj

 

Did you do the install yourself?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using the chassis ground, so I'd just do that.

 

Most Nissan radios get their ground through the antenna. If you follow the ground wire on the Metra harness to the OEM harness you will most likely see no ground wire in the OEM harness.

So yes, ground the radio to the chassis.

 

Yes, installed the avic myself. What's confusing / troubling is that everything was working for almost two years and now all of a sudden, I have to move all my grounds.

I don't mind using the chassis ground, was just wondering what other problems (if any) I can expect since the harness ground stopped playing nice.

 

i'll trace the connection tonight. Thank you.

 

Ground through the antenna?



Never seen that, anywhere, since if you attached the antenna to the chassis, it would seriously mess with reception, which would be why the antenna wire is so thick and shielded compared to every other wire going to the radio. If you fail to connect the radio to a proper ground, it's possible that the antenna's shielding can be used for a ground. This is not particularly good for any part of the antenna or radio.

The only ground associated with the antenna in our cars is the antenna amp, which requires a ground, several feet away from the radio.

Grounding through the radio bracket, however, is extremely common.

 

Sorry to bumb a old thread but I figure its better to bumb the start one thats the same.

My car is a 04 with bose. Bought it with a Alpine head unit installed and worked awesome for the first year or so that i had it. I've taken the unit out several times with no problems. Now today im trying to install my boost guage and removed my stereo and now my ground wire isnt working. Ive looked and all the wires look good i dont see any chaffing. so my question is where does that wire attach to the ground and can I attach this side of the wire to a chasis ground to restore the ground for the wire up utill the problem and re ground what ever else is on that wire?