Ghetto wired headunit causing my battery to die..

[Andy348]

I bought the car with an aftermarket Blaupunkt radio installed, along with some premium speakers. The problems I now have are:

1. PO wired the speakers above the carpet and tried to hide it as much as possible, yet failed.
2. The stereo will go on when the car is turned off and the key is out.
3. My battery dies when it sits for awhile.

Now I've read that #2 causes #3, I'm just not sure how. What could the previous owner have done to make the stereo stay on?

Also, if someone could tell me the best way to rewire the speakers, I'd be thankful.

Thanks!

[glucklich21]

Well your radio is hooked up to constant power where it's switched power should be. My guess is the radio's constant and switched is backwards. Since switched is on when the car is on, you wouldn't know anything was wrong till you turned it off.

As for the speaker wiring going everywhere, I had the same problem. Luckily I had enough to wrap it in the stock pattern with friction tape and tuck it away in the factory conduits. ;)

[AndrewBird]

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=191119

[StereoInstaller1]

What year/model/level of stereo did your car come with?

[Andy348]

I'm not sure. The stereo looks to be just the premium speakers that he put in on the back 'shelf'. The front speakers seem to be unchanged.

[StereoInstaller1]

So no tweeters up front? What model blaupunkt? Your car might have an amp, do you know where to find the factory amp?

[Flynn]

Where is the factory amp?

[EN318isPDX]

2. Locating and Removing/Unhooking Booster Amplifier

The amplifier takes the high-level signals from the head unit and bumps them up for 'premium' sound. Since it takes speaker-level signals in, you generally can't use it for much else. In most cases you'll want to remove it from the system when upgrading (if not remove it from the car altogether).

The booster in my car was located in the left hand side of the trunk, just in front of the power antenna motor assembly. You do have to pull back the mouse fur. I found it easiest to remove the whole left side trunk liner. This comes out with a bit of gentle pulling and prodding. If you have the Bentley Manual, the picture of the power antenna motor location on page 14-9 shows the amp: you can see the white sticker on the amplifer through the round cutout in the sheet metal to the right of the black antenna motor case.

Unless you are a circus contortionist, you're gonna have to remove the amplifer from it's hiding place even if all you want to do is unplug it and bypass it. There are two bolts holding it and the rear light check relays in place between the fender and the sheet metal inside the trunk. I also had to unbolt the antenna motor in order to make room to slide the amp and check relays out.

Once the assembly is out, you can unplug the amp from it's harness. Either reinstall the amp, or unmount it from the check relay mounting bracket, then reinstall the check relay and bracket. Replace antenna motor mounting bolts.

[Andy348]

So no tweeters up front? What model blaupunkt? Your car might have an amp, do you know where to find the factory amp?

My bad, yep, it's got tweeters, but I'm not sure when those were put in/changed.

Where is the factory amp?

2. Locating and Removing/Unhooking Booster Amplifier

The amplifier takes the high-level signals from the head unit and bumps them up for 'premium' sound. Since it takes speaker-level signals in, you generally can't use it for much else. In most cases you'll want to remove it from the system when upgrading (if not remove it from the car altogether).

The booster in my car was located in the left hand side of the trunk, just in front of the power antenna motor assembly. You do have to pull back the mouse fur. I found it easiest to remove the whole left side trunk liner. This comes out with a bit of gentle pulling and prodding. If you have the Bentley Manual, the picture of the power antenna motor location on page 14-9 shows the amp: you can see the white sticker on the amplifer through the round cutout in the sheet metal to the right of the black antenna motor case.

Unless you are a circus contortionist, you're gonna have to remove the amplifer from it's hiding place even if all you want to do is unplug it and bypass it. There are two bolts holding it and the rear light check relays in place between the fender and the sheet metal inside the trunk. I also had to unbolt the antenna motor in order to make room to slide the amp and check relays out.

Once the assembly is out, you can unplug the amp from it's harness. Either reinstall the amp, or unmount it from the check relay mounting bracket, then reinstall the check relay and bracket. Replace antenna motor mounting bolts.

As for the amp, I'm not sure.

I really don't know much about stereos, so I just took pictures of what I thought was relevant to the problem. Here they are:

Headunit:


Tweeters:


What I think is the Amp:


Rear Shelf Speakers:



Wiring, complete with a 1980s radar detector ninja-mounted under the console (terrible picture, speaker wiring is the shiny thing on the left)


Pretty stupid question, but where are the wires for the stereo supposed to go?

[EN318isPDX]

Rear Shelf Speakers:



Pretty stupid question, but where are the wires for the stereo supposed to go?

Based on that ghetto wiring job, it looks like someone wired those speakers to the amp. The humming is probably the fact he left the old wires hooked up and they are grounding out

Does your deck have RCA's hooked up to the back? Thats how the head unit sends the sound to the amp which then sends the power to the speakers.

[Andy348]

Based on that ghetto wiring job, it looks like someone wired those speakers to the amp. The humming is probably the fact he left the old wires hooked up and they are grounding out

Does your deck have RCA's hooked up to the back? Thats how the head unit sends the sound to the amp which then sends the power to the speakers.

I'll go get a picture of the back of the headunit in a couple mins. Thanks for the help

[EN318isPDX]

I'll go get a picture of the back of the headunit in a couple mins. Thanks for the help

Ok, im not 100% thats your issue, could also be bad wiring.. obviously, if the speaker wires have any cuts in them or are run to close to large power wires (the battery line running down the passenger side) it can cause noise. I have not hooked up my amp yet but i plan on cutting the speaker wires in the back of the deck. Because when the stereo isnt on i get a constant buzz

[Andy348]

Ok, im not 100% thats your issue, could also be bad wiring.. obviously, if the speaker wires have any cuts in them or are run to close to large power wires (the battery line running down the passenger side) it can cause noise. I have not hooked up my amp yet but i plan on cutting the speaker wires in the back of the deck. Because when the stereo isnt on i get a constant buzz

I haven't noticed any problems with the sound, but I've only really driven the car for an hour or two so I wouldn't really notice.

Just a side question - is there anything specific I should be doing with wires that are no longer needed? for example, I just put in a euro clock in the place of my 6 button OBC and there were about 6 wires that I just left disconnected.

I just tried to get the head unit out and can't figure out how!

[StereoInstaller1]

So that thing you saw in the trunk is, in fact, the amp. Your car came with those rear speakers and up front, you need to pitch those shitty speakers and go back to stock Premiums.

Then, you need to byapss your amp and properly install your deck. I did a writeup, it is now a sticky.

GL!
Luke

[Andy348]

So that thing you saw in the trunk is, in fact, the amp. Your car came with those rear speakers and up front, you need to pitch those shitty speakers and go back to stock Premiums.

Then, you need to byapss your amp and properly install your deck. I did a writeup, it is now a sticky.

GL!
Luke

Thanks, I'll do this this weekend.

I've just got three more questions!

1. Where does the speaker wire normally run from front to back (headunit to rear shelf)?

2. I read in your sticky that OEM wiring wouild be the best bet, but the PO of my car cut it out and is using very shitty wires. Any idea what would be the next best to replace it with?

3. And finally, I simply cannot get my headunit out of the console. Is there a special way to do it?

Thanks a lot