Having some D3 problems/nitpicks PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[sigma20xx]

Hey all, this is my first post as I am now the proud owner of a D3 that I got on eBay for $600 (woot). Anywho, I don't know anything about installing car audio equipment. This pretty much forces me to go to the local car audio shop to get ripped off. This guy did a pretty good job over all, but I think he was either being lazy or skipping steps as some of my features aren't working properly. So far, I've been able to keep all of the products in the family and I'll list what I have.

 

AVIC-D3, GEX-P10XMT, ND-BC2 REAR VIEW CAMERA and the CD-I200 cable.

 

Problems that I'm having?

Camera works when selected in on the map view screen option, but not when the car is put into reverse.

 

Can't change the night/daytime display screen for the map. It's looks like it's set for daytime no matter what I change it to.

 

When I got home I noticed some wires were left over when I checked the boxes. Could someone tell me what these wires do? One is pink and the other is purple with a white stripe.

 

*sigh* I've been to this place numerous times for then to fix mistakes. If I didn't have to drive 2+ hours away to get the job somewhere else, I would have. It's starting to seem like that wouldn't have been a bad idea.

 

Here is the problem list.

1. Installed system, but did not connect antenna wire for Navigation, so I had none.

 

2. Didn't connect "DATA CABLE" (how do you miss this?) so I couldn't use the XMNAV TRAFFIC feature.

 

3. Both the XM radio and Navigation antenna are inside my car on passenger side dash. The instructions says it's supposed to be on the outside of the car, but they are working find and getting a strong signal. At least that's what the status displays say. So I guess this is no big deal.

 

Funny story about number 2. When everything was said and done and I found that cable in the box, the guy said to me. "heh, data cable, don't know what that's for, but don't worry about it, I got everything working." I couldn't figure out why it was saying that my Nav Traf feature wasn't working. I got XM going, so it must have something to do with the D3 or something. I looked at my installation book and sure enough found out the problem and went back the next day to have him fix it.

 

When the camera got hooked up today, we tried to figure out how to get it to come on when it goes into reverse. I remeber the first time everything was hooked up, he told me he did "the bypass". I'm not sure how he did it, but it worked and it wasn't done like it was posted on here. The reason I know this is because I showed him necro's flash tutorial and aparently he had done something different. So that's why we thought the camera wasn't working. So he went in and changed his bypass method to the one that necro posted and still nothing. He told me that in order for the camera to work, that he would have to hook everything up correctly. In other words, he would have to undo the bypass modification.

 

What I need from you guys is detailed instructions on what needs to be done to fix these two problems. Also, I need to know what to tell him to do with these two wires. If someone has the time and patience to type that up so I can print it out. I would be grateful. Like I said, I have no idea how car audio equipment works nor the tools to do the job. I am at the mercy of this half horse town and I want to get this done right sometime this week.

 

My car

2000 Oldmobile Intrigue GLS with BOSE system

The original deck has been trashed. The factory amp has been uninstalled and replaced by to other amps, a power cap and 2 12" subs.

 

Thanks in advance.

[apocalypseofthenorm]

Wow. First off let me start by saying ouch and I'm sorry lol. Second, I think I can help. If you lived closer I could DEFINITELY help, cause I'd do it for you for free. This kinda stuff is like a hobby for me. But yeah, anyways, lets get started... First, your camera issue is linked to that purple cable with a white stripe that you mentioned later in the post that you said he left in the box. That cable plugs in to the brain where ever he mounted it and should run to the rear of the car. The other end of it at the rear of the car gets tapped into a lead of your reverse light. Left or right light it does not matter. The correct lead you need to tap into is the lead that changes voltage whenever you put the car into reverse (i.e. the hot wire) I have a GM so my wires for the reverse lights are black and green. Typically the negative will always be black so tap it into the other wire, whatever the color of it may be. You can also check this wire with a multimeter to curb any doubts if you are electronically inclined to do so. What this wire does and how it links to your camera problem is as follows: This wire tells the entire system when the vehicle is moving in reverse and not forward and also provides the switching input to the camera circuit so the "brain" knows to switch the camera on when you shift into reverse because your reverse lights will light thus activating this circuit. It has NOTHING to do with the bypass that he did and IF he did that bypass correctly, tell him to leave it the hell alone because that will not mess up what is happening to your camera. Second, as for the night / daytime problem... if you purchased / he charged you for a wiring harness along with the installation to make the hookup easier, then there's typically either an orange with a white stripe or just straight pure orange wire in the aftermarket harnesses that you connect to the Pioneer harness when you wire it up. The orange / orange and white wire, whichever you may have on your vehicle specific harness when you purchase it, is typically labeled ILL or illumination control wire. This is the lead that informs the unit whether the lighting is on or off and gives it direction on whether or not to use day or night mode. They didn't connect the GPS wire? Not quite sure why they wouldnt do that except for pure laziness I guess. Didn't connect the data cable either? I could maybe see that as there are two kinds of XM receivers for Pioneer head units and the other one has no data cable. Of course , it's just for music lol but if he installs a lot of those, he may not be used to looking for the data cable in the box. Both of your antennas are on the dash? Ehh, no big deal there I don't think. A lot of the installers are choosing to do that because it takes a little more work to route the cable around the vehicle to the outside. I have mine roof mounted, but my room mate mounted his like that and I've heard of several shops doing it. As long as the status display says things are great, I wouldn't worry. For the record, my room mate says he gets great reception. Don't know that I would print this entire artical out to hand it to him, lol. You could I guess, if you want him to know that all of us at AVIC-411 think he flunked install school. But let me continue lol... Thirdly, the pink wire you have in your photo is the VSS wire or Vehicle Speed Sensor wire. This wire connects also to the "brain" right next to the purple wire on the "brain". The other end of the wire should be tapped into the VSS or Vehicle Speed Sensor wire. You / he can find this wire by checking the wiring schematics of your vehicle in some sort of publication such as Chilton etc. or the internet or some sort of vehicle specific forum. They may even have a post of it on here somewhere if you search something like "Intrigue VSS". The VSS wire or Vehicle Speed Sensor wire goes from ur VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) on the car wherever it may be located, usually on the side of the transmission to the PCM or Powertrain Control Module (which is the vehicle computer under the hood) Some vehicles like GMs will have a wire coming up behind the dash radio that you can tap into because most GMs have a radio with noise dampening technology (they automatically control the radio volume to compensate for the outside road noise based on relative speed and the data for this is obtained from the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor wire like I mentioned above. You may or may not have that wire behind your dash depending on if your radio does the noise dampening thing. Even if it doesn't, there will ALWAYS be a VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) wire coming from the PCM (Powertrain Control Module) harness under the hood. You just have to find a publication or internet article to determine which color the wire is that you need to tap. A note for the pink wire and just and FYI for you so you are informed. The pink wire also helps ur GPS accuracy. GPS is an EXTREMELY weak signal because of it's wave length. So, when driving, if you enter a tunnel or under thick brush like tall trees down a narrow road or downtown in a big city with large buildings, especially with the dash mounted antennas, you will notice a significant decrease in antenna performance. That is the purpse of the pink wire. It gets continuous information from the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) on how fast the vehicle is going and does a little internal math and dynamics problems and correlates these results with the last known GPS fix that the antenna received. It then continues to plot your position on the map, in conjunction with the internal gyroscope (in the "brain") to give you very accurate position results even when satellite coverage is poor. This helps the information stay accurate in a tunnel or any of those other situations that I listed above. Hope these instructions were detailed enough. Forgive me as they were "too" detailed. I tried to do the best that I could and when writing instructions for these posts, I am never truly sure of the skill level of the reader so I don't want to leave things out. I'm not a professional but I'm an engineering student with a love / passion / hobby for electronics, especially mobile electronics so I enjoy doing things like this. I've installed three Pioneer AVIC units now so there's not much I haven't run across. Message me back and let me know if this helps and how it's going!

[TxJole]

Damn does that come in hard back???? I'll wait for the cliff notes good luck.

[jimmy303]

Where are you located?

[installermarc]

OK, here's your cliff notes version.

 

Have the shop complete the install. The VSS (pink wire) should be connected whenever possible. GM's are usually easy-green/white behind the cluster or radio (if present). The purple/white needs to be connected to the green wire at the reverse light. Lastly, on your car the orange/white from the D3 needs to be connected to the brown wire at the parking light (can be ran with the reverse wire to save time) to solve the day/night problem.

 

As long as the signals are fine, the antennas do not need to be moved.

[sigma20xx]

Thanks for the input all. I'm glad you broke it down into cliff notes for me installermarc. I was going to proof read over what apocalypseofthenorm wrote and take out all the installer guy bashing as well as edit my own post. Just incase I wanted to show him something from this page. This job shouldn't take no more than 30 min to an hour right?

 

Jimmy303, I currently live in a hell hole in California known as Barstow.

 

I was able to find the answer to the question that I'm about to ask in another post. But I want to see if this problem is linked to what I'm dealing with right now. Someone posted how the little flash logos don't come up like they are supposed to when you are using the XM Radio feature. You know, like when the screen stays white and you don't get the little animated graphic picture. The other poster was told to insert the nav disc and it should start working. I did the same and even though I got the logo, the little animate picture just stays as P.CH. Anyone know if that problem is linked to the poor installation?

 

Also, I don't own an ipod yet, but is it ok for me to get the current classic ipod that's available to use with my CD-I200 cable? I'm asking because I can't tell which generation is which. Also, I've read on these boards about problems that people are having with either older generation ipods or cables. Do I need a newer cable? This is the only thing I saw on the pioneer website as that is used to connect the ipod. I'd like to get that cool ipod touch, but paying that much money and only getting 16gb does not justify it's coolness to price ratio.

[apocalypseofthenorm]

Hey all,

 

Sorry about the extensiveness but I took "What I need from you guys is detailed instructions on what needs to be done to fix these two problems. Also, I need to know what to tell him to do with these two wires. If someone has the time and patience to type that up so I can print it out. I would be grateful." to mean that detailed instrctions were needed and there was no experience here. I'm also sorry about the installer bashing lol. I've had one in my previous experience as well. Never let Best Buy car audio install anything in ur car btw but yeah, hope it all helped. Barstow huh? I dated a girl from there and she loved it lol, course she was kinda wierd. Anyways, good luck with the D.

 

Shaun

[sigma20xx]

Man, I know not to go to best buy or circuit city. When I took my car to them, they told me that there was no way to install a aftermarket stereo in it without disabling electronic features such as electronic locks, cruise control and a few other really important things. I thought I was just stuck with the crappy head unit that was in the car. So I do give the current installer credit for actually doing the research to find the correct wiring harness and doing a half decent job. I guess he's just not familiar with installing the AVIC line of head units. Funny thing though, the store sells the whole series of them up to the Z2. As for the bashing thing, it was well deserved, but I will say this, the guy is really cool and has no problems going back correcting his mistakes. Maybe he's just learning about this particular unit in general you know. I asked him how long he had been doing this type of work and he told me 10 years.

 

He has built me pretty sweet amp rack and custom box for my subs, so maybe this was just his one fluke on the job.

[apocalypseofthenorm]

Yeah, I'll go with that. It's kinda like what I said about the XM data unit. Even though theres a hell of a lot of us on the forums and stuff, the AVIC community is still relatively small when ya think about it. I just got a new N4 and many of the stores still don't even carry it, and Heaven forbid install it lol. I think it's definitely an experience thing and the only way ya learn is by doing stuff like that. It's awesome that he's taking the constructive criticism though and fixing things without hassle. I wish Best Buy had done that lol. To tell ya the truth, that's how I got started in this line of work. It wasn't that I COULDNT DO IT but i just DIDNT WANT TO because I was lazy so then up and comes a time where I find a great deal on a better car and want to sell my car for the trade in value. When ya have to go into something to take it back OUT is when ya really find out how good of a job was done in putting it IN lol. Since then I've done my own builds, install work, I even learned how to fiberglass. Stuff like that sharpens ya skills at least! HA!

 

Shaun

[sigma20xx]

Ok, didn't make it to the car stereo shop in time after I got off from work. So I'll have to try again tonight. In the installers defense, there is nothing in the instructions that tells you what to do with the pink and purple wires. I looked over the instrcutions a few times and there really isn't anything about them in it. So that's probably why he didn't use them. Should he have automatically known what they were for?

[tblazin22s]

I would say that he should have known if he has been installing stereos for 10+ years. Plus, if they carry the entire line up for avics, he has to know what those wires do. I think he didn't want to run the wires to the rear and front.

[apocalypseofthenorm]

I'm with tblazin on that one. Plus, I'm shocked that it's not in the D series instructions. I've never owned a D or installed it but I've installed an N2, 3, and now 4 and they all list the purple and pink wires in the schematic.

 

Shaun

[hottwhyrd]

K I READ ALOT OF UR PROBLEMS BUT I SIMPLY CANT READ ANYMORE SO I HAVE ONE QUESTION.

 

does the shop you took it to carry pioneer? it sounds to me like they simply arent familiar with these units.

[sigma20xx]

Yes they do. They carry a couple of the Primere(sp) head units as well as most of the avic series.

[HawgPhixer]

Ok, didn't make it to the car stereo shop in time after I got off from work. So I'll have to try again tonight. In the installers defense, there is nothing in the instructions that tells you what to do with the pink and purple wires. I looked over the instrcutions a few times and there really isn't anything about them in it. So that's probably why he didn't use them. Should he have automatically known what they were for?

 

Page 11 and 12 of the AVIC-D3 Installation Manual explains what the Pink and the Violet/White wire are for and what to connect them to. They are basically extension wires.

I think I have a .pdf of the manual if you need it.