Weird car head unit problem

I bought one of these to install in my 96 Subaru to replace an older aftermarket replacement unit that was starting to fail.  The wiring was a complete mess because someone had partially cut the wires to the original plug to attach it to the plug for the unit that was installed.  Its now spliced back together and has an adapter plugged in for the new unit.  But, if you plug it in and turn it on it works, even when screwed into the radio cage, but it kills the power to the speakers when you screw the cage into the car. I'm leaning toward it being a bad head unit, but since the wiring is so mangled im not 100% sure.

Run a seperate grou d from the head unit wiring to chassis ground

 If that don't fix it, bad head unit.

If the speaker wires short to each other or to ground, that usually makes a headunit go into circuit protection.  Check your connections.  You may be pinching something when installing the radio.

Knurled. said:

If the speaker wires short to each other or to ground, that usually makes a headunit go into circuit protection.  Check your connections.  You may be pinching something when installing the radio.

 

 

That's quite possible too, if that's the case it's time to give up because it would require pulling the dash and replacing at least a section of the wiring harness to fix. Maybe the best idea is to try the unit in another car and see what happens.

If it works when out of the dash and stops working when you push it in, it's probably in the section of wiring you can see.  That would be the only part that is being affected.

There's usually barely enough room for a headunit in modern cars, you may just have to make sure the wiring is arranged just right.

The problem is the wiring from the car is cut back far enough that there was barely enough room to crimp and heat shrink it back together without removing the dash. So if that's where the problem is it won't be easily repairable.