Rep Power: 256

Ok heres my situation. I just bought this really sweet clarion headunit off ebay. I went to best buy and bought a wiring kit and an in dash kit. I matched all the wires on both the wiring and the head unit. It looked all wired up great and i plugged it into the factory harness and i noticed it was difficult to plug in. So i used some force figuring it was no big deal. I turned the car on and the head unit came on but i didnt get any sound. I tried radio, cd and aux in and still nothing. So i unplugged the harness and noticed 4 of the pins were kind of bent. So i straightened them and took the old radio and tried to make the pins match up perfectly. So i went back to the car and plugged the harness in again and it went in smoother. This time i could only get a very small bit of sound in the back and only when the head unit was at full volume. So im getting kind of worried and dont know what to do now because it looked like the harness went in pretty good that time and i still couldnt get any real sound out. I also should mention that i did not have any of the climate controls plugged in but that doesnt matter does it? I really have no idea what the problem is. Can somebody give me some tips? Thanks in advance and i'll rep anyone who helps me out

 
Rep Power: 263

A bad speaker could be an issue, the clarion deck itself might not work. Depending on the best buy they might bench test the deck for free. They're supposed to charge but I never did. You could at least rule the deck out.

Do you have a multimeter or some other sort of electrical testing tools?

 
Rep Power: 329

Plug the OEM unit back in, if it works then you know it is either the Clarian or the wireing. If you wired the harness up to the Clarian corectly, I mean follow the directions do not just match up the wire colors. then it has to be the Clarian. I would take it to a stereo shop and have them test it. If it is bad make the guy on Ebay refund your money.

 
Rep Power: 263

I don't think that immediately rules out the speakers. I've seen them play on a factory unit but shutdown an aftermarket.

 
Rep Power: 256

ok i have a multimeter how can i test using that. I just wanna check speaker output from the hu

 
Rep Power: 263

You can test the deck by setting your meter to AC voltage and checking the deck's output. Hook your red lead to one of the positive wires and the black lead to the corresponding negative. There should be an increase in voltage as the radio's volume increases.

You'll also want to test your speakers. You will use the resistance setting on the meter for this. I'd plug the aftermarket harness into the factory one so it's easier. Put one lead of the meter to a positive speaker wire and the other lead to the negative wire of the same speaker. The speaker should rest at about 4 ohms. If one of the speakers is much different it's likely bad.
Also, put one meter lead to ground and go through and probe the eight speaker wires to see if there is any resistance to ground. If you have any resistance to ground in one of the wires that could also be an issue.

 
Rep Power: 256

ok my speakers are fine with the stock hu and i verified that. My head unit is showing the power increase with volume. Is there anyway i can test speaker outupt using volt meter with aftermarket hu?

 
Rep Power: 263

Again, you might get tripped up by that. Just because the speakers play on the factory hu doesn't mean they aren't causing a problem to the aftermarket. You gotta check resistances of each speaker and resistances to ground as I mentioned earlier.

Yeah, with your meter on AC voltage. But, I'm confused because you also said:

So, it sounds like you already tested and ruled that out. If that's the case I'd begin to look closer at the speakers. If I'm not being clear enough please let me know, I know I go over people's heads with out realizing it sometimes.

 
Rep Power: 256

ok well heres wut i did today. I think my multimeter might be screwed up but i set it to ohms 2000 wutever that is and touched the leads on the speakers and i got like 15. Then i went to the head unit ant touched the same corresponding wires on the same setting and got 15 so i know think the harness might be good. I fixed the pins so they line up. I'm trying to run a clarion dxz525 HU on stock speakers could this have anything to do with it.

 
Rep Power: 0

To help Diagnos this problem, how did you make your connection between the harnesses, did you crimp connect?, did you solder the lines?, did you twist and tape?, when you finish a harness tape up the harness from plug to plug and that way if you do have any shorting when you stuff the wires in the dash they will be isolated and all your speaker will work, seen in a million times

 
Rep Power: 256

ok well thanks for the help but i figured out the problem. My problem was that i was using the line level on my amp by splicing the 6x9s and running those to the amp and for some reason the amp was stealing all the power from the head unit. Once i unplugged my amp everything worked out great. Thanks for all the help