Aftermarket Head Unit questions

[khaydin]

Ok first off I have a speed3 with the bose package so there are seven speakers and the bose amp under the driver's seat.

Is it possible to use the the bose amp along with an aftermarket headunit. Today a friend and I tried installing a Pioneer Avic-D3 and we wanted to see if it would work just using the harness that came with my dash kit but we didn't get any sound. We made sure all the wires were connected correctly on the harness but still no sound.

Am I going to have to buy an aftermarket amp to get sound to the speakers or is there a way to do it with the current bose amp?

Also we weren't sure where the speed sense wire was for the navigation, does anyone know where it is? A picture of where it is would be awesome. We found a pink wire behind the glovebox but we weren't sure if that was it or not.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer!

 

[clos561]

i had a wire h arness that circuit cioty installed on my old 04 mazda 3 and i jsut plugged in my jensen 7inch tv right in and everythign owrked fine...im not sure which harness they used but everything in my car works fine

 

[khaydin]

You're using that same harness right now in your MS3 and you have the Bose sound system? Hmm maybe we got a wire wrong.. I'll have to check again tomorrow morning.

 

[ZooMIN3]

You're using that same harness right now in your MS3 and you have the Bose sound system? Hmm maybe we got a wire wrong.. I'll have to check again tomorrow morning.

He mentioned that they were on his old 04 vehicle.

Have you found anything else out as far as using the amp goes?

-J

 

[ZooMIN3]

He mentioned that they were on his old 04 vehicle.

Have you found anything else out as far as using the amp goes?

-J

wait, n/m... he referred his old car... it sounds like he did use it in his MS3?

-J

 

[clos561]

yea i am using the old wire harness for the ms3....it plugged right in and i have all the speakers working..i have the bose sub and everything that comes with gt and it all works...try going to best buy or circuit city and see if the got the harness for mazda3...its the same for mazdaspeed3..

 

[khaydin]

The harness I got with my dash kit had a grounding wire with one of those metal pieces that you could put underneath a bolt. Did you have to ground it or did you just run the ground wire straight through to the factory harness which has a very thick grounding wire and is probably already grounded?

 

[clos561]

The harness I got with my dash kit had a grounding wire with one of those metal pieces that you could put underneath a bolt. Did you have to ground it or did you just run the ground wire straight through to the factory harness which has a very thick grounding wire and is probably already grounded?

jsut match the wires...best thing to do

 

[ZooMIN3]

561, you mentioned that you're using a 7 inch screen? is that whole cd/dvd/radio combo that you used to replace your stock H/U? Can you post a pic? or do have one linked somewhere?

-J

 

[clos561]

yea i got some on photo bucket...no picture closed but yea it replaces the headunit...sounds alot better and can watch music video music instead of jsut song if i wanted to...i jsut download the vids and put them on a cd

 

[khaydin]

I finally got the sound working. It was pretty stupid actually, on my pioneer headunit there are two harnesses, one for RCAs / AMP stuff and then theres one harness for power/speakers/ground/etc... that hooks to the factory harness. Basically I didn't put the RCA harness on because I wasn't using RCAs but there is a wire on there that I needed to use, its the system remote wire or whatever that tells the amp to work! lmao. That wire is part of our factory harness (if you have the bose package), its a Blue/White wire. I wish they had a dash kit that matched the color of the rest of our dash, oh well! I attached a pic of what it looks like.

 

[StreteSpd]

I finally got the sound working. It was pretty stupid actually, on my pioneer headunit there are two harnesses, one for RCAs / AMP stuff and then theres one harness for power/speakers/ground/etc... that hooks to the factory harness. Basically I didn't put the RCA harness on because I wasn't using RCAs but there is a wire on there that I needed to use, its the system remote wire or whatever that tells the amp to work! lmao. That wire is part of our factory harness (if you have the bose package), its a Blue/White wire. I wish they had a dash kit that matched the color of the rest of our dash, oh well! I attached a pic of what it looks like.

Do your steering wheel controls work just the same with this new setup?
What about your screen?

 

[khaydin]

The steering wheel controls don't work but I do have a kit to get them back. Its just been too hot and I don't have a garage so I don't know when I'll be able to do it.

The screen does work. It doesn't display the time anymore but the climate control readouts still work fine. The time isn't even an issue though because the headunit has the time on the screen.

 

[StreteSpd]

so the screen still lights up, the outside temp works... the deck's hooked up... did you cut the housing to fit the new double-din setup or did you get an adapter kit?

and what kit do you need to keep the steering wheel controls working?

 

[clos561]

The steering wheel controls don't work but I do have a kit to get them back. Its just been too hot and I don't have a garage so I don't know when I'll be able to do it.

The screen does work. It doesn't display the time anymore but the climate control readouts still work fine. The time isn't even an issue though because the headunit has the time on the screen.

where did u buy the kit? i have a jensen tv and i want to use my controls...would that be possible?

 

[khaydin]

I had to get a dash kit and harness to put the double-din headunit in. You can probably get both of those things from Metra.

As for the steering wheel controls I don't know if you'll be able to get one for a jensen tv. This is the website of the manufacturer for my steering wheel control kit: http://www.pac-audio.com/default.asp

The one i have (SWI-PS) only works with Pioneer and Sony headunits. They may have something on there for a jensen tv. Does your jensen tv have a wired remote port on the back? It should look just like a normal 1/8" jack, thats how their units interface with the headunit.

 

[khaydin]

I took another picture today so you can see what both LCD's look like when the car is on. I still have to use the AUX jack on this headunit also because the stupid iPod connector is back ordered

 

[Boost Driven]

Does the trip computer still work for telling gas mileage?

 

[khaydin]

Nope, but thats pretty easy to figure out without it. Just reset the trip computer in the gauge cluster each time you fill up then just divide that number by the size of the gas tank and you get a rough estimate of your mpg. Well as long as you run it a little past the empty line it'll be almost accurate.

 

[Rotus8]

Nope, but thats pretty easy to figure out without it. Just reset the trip computer in the gauge cluster each time you fill up then just divide that number by the size of the gas tank and you get a rough estimate of your mpg. Well as long as you run it a little past the empty line it'll be almost accurate.

That will inflate your MPG numbers by quite a bit. The tank is 14.5 and points to empty at about 12.5; a big error. You need to divide by the amount off the pump.