Aftermarket head unit problems

[alistair666]

hi all

having problems fitting a sony headunit to my 2000 a3 1.8t. It cam with a conector which when fitted did nothing so i fitted a universal audi/vw lead from halfords.

so what i have now is sony lead into stereo, halfords lead into sony lead, sony lead into car.

now the unit powers but i can only get sound form front speakers

also i have two connectors with nowhere to go ?

 

[AndyMac]

You need to swap the universal adapter for a PC9-404. This allows you to connect the yellow part of the multicolored conector to the rear RCA's of the Sony. You then just attach the blue flying lead on the PC9-404 to the power antenna or remote on lead on the Sony. This will then feed the rear pre-out to the rear/sub amp and the power antenna signal will turn the amp on with the HU. You'll need to fade to rear quite a bit to balance the sound as the fronts will have twice the power going to them from the Sony compared to the puny 2 x 20w rear amp and 1 x 50w sub. The PC9-404 should come with the power harness you already have.

 

[alistair666]

Cheers andy

Just what I was looking for will order one now. Will this make the HU turn on and off with the key or will I have to run a wire from the fuse box?

 

[AndyMac]

No you need to run a wire from fuse (Radio S-Kont) and connect this to the red wire on the Sony

 

[adamss24]

Cheers andy

Just what I was looking for will order one now. Will this make the HU turn on and off with the key or will I have to run a wire from the fuse box?

You need an adaptor like this:

You plug in the tri-coloured connector in, conect the amp. remote feed from the sony stereo to the adaptor, swap the RED and YELLOW wires from the sony stereo around and then it will switch off from the ignition. Please get in touch with me if you need them, i have the lead/interface you need. You will just need the side trims wich local Halfords might have in stock ! Regards, Chris.

 

[AndyMac]

Yes, that's the shyte speaker input adapter, which uses a hi-lo converter on your already amped speaker outputs, definately not the one you want. You want the RCA input for a pure feed to the rear amp. Also you can't just swap the yellow & red wires on a 2000+ A3 as the HU is CANBUS controlled, and there is no "ignition on" feed to swap, you have to wire one in as already said.

 

[alistair666]

o dear just noticed i have no RCA outputs on the back of my sony head unit

so if my car is canbus can i fit in a concert 2 head unit from a a3/tt/a4?

 

[AndyMac]

Are you sure. Didn't think anyone made a head unit with no pre-outs, unless it's one from the 1980's!
Yes you can fit a newer concert2, from an A3 would be safest as the fascia's are slightly different between Audi models i.e. an A4 one will not match your dash.

 

[alistair666]

yeah sure it just has 2 block connectors and an arial socket

its a new sony hu but only £60 in the halfords sale

didnt wanna spend to much as looking at getting an s3 next year sometime

 

[alistair666]

how can i tell if my a3 is can-bus or not some post suggest all pre 2000 are non can-bus and others say all 2001 cars onwards are

mine is a 2000 vreg 1.8t agu engine

although looking through the paperwork the car has a delivery date of
oct 09 at the dealers but wasnt first taxed untill jan 2000

 

[AndyMac]

Either unplug it and plug it back in and see if it asks for the radio code (CANBUS HU's don't need the code), or check out the black power ISO connector and see if it has both a red with white stripe and yellow with red striped cables along with the brown earth. From the pic it looks like it just has red perm live, so is CANBUS, i.e. no ignition on feed.

 

[hamas]

AndyMac,so you sayin,if rears speakers are withouth sound,can fixed with the PC9-404 adaptor? I just don`t wanna rewirw rear speakers. Before I had buzzing from left rear tweeter,but one audio fitter swap over something with wires,or conector,buzzing stoped,but now rear/sub speaker are very,very low.HU is Alpine 103bt .Anyway thanx

 

[AndyMac]

You don't have tweeters in the rear, so that's wierd for a start.
The rears and sub will be very low, you have 2 x 50w+ now going to the fronts and only a puny 2 x 20w to the rears and 1 x 50w to the joke of a sub.