I just bought a 2005 F-150 XL Regular Cab Pick-up. It came only with a basic radio. I bought a factory 6 disc cd changer. IT FITS GREAT! But, The original radio only had two plugs. The antenna and the power for the radio. The new cd changer has three plugs in the back of it. One for the radio, one for the antenna, and the other for the cd player. I looked hard under the dash and everywhere else, but no cord. How can I get it? I've got the radio in for right now and it works fine, except for the cd player.
And just to share. I traded a 2002 F-250 Crew Cab Lariet in for this truck. I went from fully loaded to work truck package. Big change! But I don't really miss my big truck. I do miss the 7.3 liter! This new f-150 has the 4.6 in it. I just didn't have the need for the BIG truck anymore. Not to mention that diesel has skyrocketed these days.
Anyways, Any help on getting my CD player working would be greatly appreciated. I HATE FM RADIO! To many commercials. That's why I bought XM Radio. LOVE IT! $9.99 a month for commercial free music is a small price to pay for me. THANKS

 

did you check to see if maybe the wire was tucked into the main wiring harness and wropped up?? Normally the wiring harness should have the extra wire. Unless the work truck wiring harness has a totally different wiring harness? when you ordered the radio through ford did they or did you ask ifit would wire up to a reg Ford w/t?

Lance

 

I ordered it off of Ebay. (Saved money that way. I payed $210.00 for it. I hope thats good.) It came out of a new F-150. The person selling it wanted an aftermarket player and they pulled this one out right after they purchased the truck. I called myself lookin' pretty good for any extra wires. I could give it another try. It was getting dark! I called my local Ford Dealer and they gave me a chicago number. He said that they are the one's who handle all of their radio stuff. I'm in southwest Georgia. I tried calling but it was busy. I'll keep trying.

 

I just compare the radio to foglights some one was trying to install, some members said their trk had the pre wiring already there and all you had to do was plug the new lights in and some said there was no pre wiring there. I wonder ifit is the same with your truck. hope not could be a pain in the but trying to wire in a new plug.

Lance

 

If you go to the Ford web page and navigate to the "Build Your Vehicle" page for the F-150, you'll see that neither of the 6-disc CD changers are available as options for the XL. If you switch to an XLT, the first one shows up. I'm assuming that the second (Audiophile) will appear if you picked a Lariat or King Ranch. All of these choices are too expensive for my wallet, so I'm hardly an expert.

I suspect that the reason for this is that the higher-end audio options have controls on the steering wheel, and thus the needn for the third plug.

I think you have a couple of options:

1. Resell the unit on eBay and chalk up the difference to education. If you see the list of bidders that you beat, the nearest couple might still be interested in taking it off your hands. (It would also be worthwhile asking your eBay seller what model (XLT, Lariat, etc.) originally held the audio unit.)

2. Upgrade the steering wheel and steering column wiring to match the Lariat and XLT. This depends on how much time you have on your hands, availability of the harness as a separate part, et cetera. Not my first choice. (Note: the XL does have wiring for the speed control, but I don't think it has the additional wiring for the audio controls. IIRC someone did the steering wheel swap to add speed control to a base XL or STX and posted pictures, so I'd suggest researching that rather than taking my word for it.)

3. Probably the cheapest alternative, and one which leaves you with something useful after the research is done, is to get a shop manual CD and check out the wiring diagram. You may be able to route some controls to the cigarette lighter area and cobble up a custom interface. And the cost of the shop manual is not good money after bad in any event.

One other thing - I believe that the radio vendors changed between 2004 and 2005 - it might be useful to post the part number and maker (I think I've heard it's either Visteon or Delphi) so that other, more knowledgeable members of this forum might be able to give more on-target advice.

Best of luck,

Hank All-I-Listen-To-Is-The-AM-Radio-Traffic-Reports Murphy
2005 XL Work Truck

 

the third plug is for the rear subwoofer on audiophile equipped vehicles. i do not think it will affect the radio installation in your truck. the audiophile system is only available in the lariat/king ranch trucks and maybe fx4 units but not sure about that.
jim

 

I spoke with a different Ford Dealer. They said that the unit should play without the extra plug. The extra plug is "probably" for something else, like a dvd player or something. They said that it "might" be defected. I sure hope not. I e-mailed the person I bought it from and asked for any info they can give. Thanks for y'alls help. Hopefully, I'll get it woking soon! I've been buying things off of ebay for years. Maybe my time has come to get a lemon!
Adam

 

hate it when that happens, gotta be careful with ebay. May be it's an internal fuse or something?

Lance

 

I have read several post on here where ppl bought the 6 disc changer and when they received it the cd player would not work probably things getting slung around during shipping process maybe the internal trays for the cds got knocked out of alignment?? if you have a good stereo shop maybe you could stop inand ask them about it

 

The 3rd plug is for the subwoofer output so it should not affect the CD changer. You can put the radio into a self test mode using the following proceedure:

1> With the radio playing, simultaniously press the 3 and 6 buttons (radio preset buttons). The radio will go into a speaker walkaround test that pages through all the speakers.

2> While in the walkaround test, press button 1. The unit will start a self test, Wait until the self test completes and it will tell you if it passed or not.

3> Press button 2 to get any DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes). Use the up/down buttons on the top right of the unit to page through the codes.

Send me a private message with any codes and I'll look them up and tell you what they mean. Good luck...

 

Alright! I finally got it working. Took it to the Ford dealer and they fixed it under warranty. Dont know what the problem was, but it's fixed and working now.