Impala Forums banner

Installing Aftermarket Radios - Get the Harness!!!

73K views 73 replies 32 participants last post by  John F 
#1 ·
I know that radios are expensive and that we all want to save a few bucks. But passing on the adapter harness and trying to wire in the radio directly to the body wiring is quite possibly one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

A) You will lose your door chimes. Which if they are disabled, it can make it difficult to resell the vehicle or trade it in.

B) You will lose your OnStar functionality (if installed)

C) Chevy doesn't have any particular method to their madness when labelling what wire is what and more often than not, doesn't make any sense to the nomenclature used in the aftermarket schematics (which actually follow a standard!).

D) IT'S $100!!! SERIOUSLY!!

E) Installing the aftermarket harness is easier and faster.


So you may ask, "Oh great and powerful Will! How do I know what harness to get as I don't possess the infinite knowledge in your noggin!)

Here's how: Crutchfield: LCD TV, Car Stereo, Home Theater, Speakers, Digital Cameras

Go there and you'll see a menu called Car Audio/Video&GPS, and then Outfit my car.



Then it will ask you for the Year, Make, Model, Body Style (if applicable), and last but most certainly not least, what original equipment you have or had installed on the car.



It may also ask if you already have a factory or aftermarket stereo installed as well.

Then you can click on Car Receivers, In dash DVD Receivers or In dash GPS Navigation depending on what you have or want to install.



Once you find your radio, it'll tell you everything you need to know. Including WHETHER IT FITS OR NOT!!!

And if you click on Installation Info...oh HAI!



You know what harness to install, how much it costs, and where to get it from.

To see how easy it is with the adapter harness...

Everything is color coded to the standard colors that the aftermarket manufacturers adhere to. With solder splicing instead of butt splicing it took me half an hour to build the harness to get it into the car. And all I had to do was plug it in.



So before you cut into your factory harness, please do the above. Because I've seen it take upwards of TWO WEEKS to get everything working correctly otherwise. It's not worth the money to skip it.
 
See less See more
5
#73 ·
I know that radios are expensive and that we all want to save a few bucks. But passing on the adapter harness and trying to wire in the radio directly to the body wiring is quite possibly one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

A) You will lose your door chimes. Which if they are disabled, it can make it difficult to resell the vehicle or trade it in.

B) You will lose your OnStar functionality (if installed)

C) Chevy doesn't have any particular method to their madness when labelling what wire is what and more often than not, doesn't make any sense to the nomenclature used in the aftermarket schematics (which actually follow a standard!).

D) IT'S $100!!! SERIOUSLY!!

E) Installing the aftermarket harness is easier and faster.


So you may ask, "Oh great and powerful Will! How do I know what harness to get as I don't possess the infinite knowledge in your noggin!)

Here's how: Crutchfield: LCD TV, Car Stereo, Home Theater, Speakers, Digital Cameras

Go there and you'll see a menu called Car Audio/Video&GPS, and then Outfit my car.



Then it will ask you for the Year, Make, Model, Body Style (if applicable), and last but most certainly not least, what original equipment you have or had installed on the car.



It may also ask if you already have a factory or aftermarket stereo installed as well.

Then you can click on Car Receivers, In dash DVD Receivers or In dash GPS Navigation depending on what you have or want to install.



Once you find your radio, it'll tell you everything you need to know. Including WHETHER IT FITS OR NOT!!!

And if you click on Installation Info...oh HAI!



You know what harness to install, how much it costs, and where to get it from.

To see how easy it is with the adapter harness...

Everything is color coded to the standard colors that the aftermarket manufacturers adhere to. With solder splicing instead of butt splicing it took me half an hour to build the harness to get it into the car. And all I had to do was plug it in.



So before you cut into your factory harness, please do the above. Because I've seen it take upwards of TWO WEEKS to get everything working correctly otherwise. It's not worth the money to skip it.
That is good and all, but I have a 2016 Chevy Impala and when I went to the Crutchfield site and did all you said to do, they show your everything you can possibly need to install the nice aftermarket radio, but what you fail to mention is you lose a lot of functionality in a lot of these vehicles. native GPS is gone, OnStar (possibly gone), chimes and so forth. Not to mention that the center part screen may not work the same as it does, like the original head unit did.

It's not just figure out the wiring and it will work. A normal person like me would barely know where to start. If it's easy to swap out and have 100% full functionality, then show me how and where. There is a HMI module where I know the GPS plugs into and that's not anywhere near the head unit. If i get an aftermarket radio, that HMI module isn't used I believe any longer. Not sure why GM has to make it so hard to have Kenwood, Sony (pick a company) and others just make the radio upgradable and make them a plug-in standard (to a point). I would definitely love to upgrade my radio head unit, but not if I lose my functions of my car. Any experts here can guide me, then I'm all ears and would do it myself.
 
#74 ·
I’d like to add to this as I’ve recently discovered more benefits of something called “Maestro RR”. It’s a way to integrate factory functionality to a compatible aftermarket head unit. It retains all things like door chime, onstar and the other factory items but include added things such as trans temp, maf psi, fuel gauge, throttle position, intake air temp etc... many are selectable but only a handful can be displayed at one time. I’ve had this for over a yr and today discovered I can read trans temp and other things without an expensive obd reader.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top