A friend of mine asked me to put an aftermarket radio into her car. I've done it before, not hard. Just match the colors of wires. I did that, and the radio didn't work. I thought it was a bad radio because the radio came out of a wrecked car, but I put the old one back in and that one doesn't work either! I tried checking the fuse box under the hood but they were all fine. Is there more fuses somewhere inside the car? I'm very stumped by this.

 

usually there is a power distribution box with fuses under the hood on newer cars, and a conventional fuse box inside. What kind of car?

 

when you say it didnt work did the unit not turn on? or did it turn on and not make any sound? i'd guess that when the factory unit was removed the wire harness got knocked around and now a wire is loose somewhere.

if you still have the vehicle try installing it again, hook up the speaker wires, but then tape off the factory ground and power wires.

if you can use a test light to find two differnt fuses, one that has constant power and one that only has power when the ignition key is turned.

once you find a constant power fuse run the yellow [memory power] wire from the radio to it, strip about a half inch of the wire and wrap it around one prong on the fuse, make sure the wire is touching one prong only. then with the wire attached pop the fuse back into the fuse box.

next, once you've found a fuse that only has power when the key is on, run the red [main power] wire down to the fuse. once again fray the wire and wrap it around the fuse, and put the fuse back in.

finally you need to ground it, black wire. find a screw or bolt under the dash, make sure the screw/bolt is going into something metal. remove the bolt or screw and wrap the frayed end of the black wire around it, then tighten the screw or bolt back in its hole.

like i said before its got to be a wire somewhere, no biggy just do your own wiring and it'll be fine. sorry if the response is a little long winded i just wanted to explain everything as clear as i could.

 

Oops, it's a '95 Toyota Corolla. I just went and picked up the car again. The girl is whining because she has no music. Thanks for the responses, I'll go out and see what I can do.

 

the easiest way is to run the wires to the fuse box. You cant always hook wires together because they are the same color.

 

I couldn't find anyplace to run wires into the engine compartment. But I did plug the radio in and it made a noise like when you eject a cd, but that's all it did. Wouldn't turn on. Both radios did that. I'm totally stumped unless I find a hole in the firewall someplace.

 

this should set you in order.
http://www.installdr.com/

 

Well I discovered that there was another fuse block inside the car under the dash. The fuse was blown. All that headache for a stupid little fuse that I didn't even know was there. geez

 

FWIW: You can not go color to color without getting bitten eventually. White on one car (say GM) is ground on another (say Ford). About the only safe color is red.

You hook up the red first with a ground to the body. Red with a strip or blue with a stripe is IGN on sometimes for the lighting so you do not want to put a lot of power to the speakers until you figure that out.

Then use a MM to figure out the rest.

What I do is buy a Haynes manual for each car and figure it out that way and then sell the book I do not need after writing the wire colors and values in the back of the book I keep for the car where I installed the radio.

$12 for a manual is cheap insurance.

 

The colors I was refering to were the wires from the radio harness to the adaptor harness that connected to the car. I noticed the wires on the car harness weren't even close to the radio wires.

 

when I put a new radio into my kids car .I used the factory wiring diagram found in the service manual and cross checked it with the diagram for the new radio first...........aahh,,,Maybe you didint do this ? Not trying to demerit your efforts, But you see in the world of mechanics you got 2 types of people "Those that fix stuff and Those that sorta just mess" LOL