New Stereo DIY
 

Hey everyone. It's been a bad past month for me because my aftermarket stereo was stolen a couple of weeks ago. Worst day of my life! I put the OEM radio back in but I'm just going insane without the kick of my subwoofers. I will be buying a new stereo ASAP but I have decided to put it in myself hoping I can save a few bucks. I've never done this before, so I am asking a little help from you guys. I have two main questions. Can I just buy a harness that goes from the OEM hookup to the aftermarket radio or do I have to do some type of wiring? My other question is a little more difficult. My last radio I had could barely receive any radio stations. I made a post about it a while back but really didn't get any help. The OEM radio receives stations fine but any aftermarket one I had in my Alero barely got any reception. What do I have to buy or do to get my stations. If it's a wiring thing, I would like a step-by-step procedure please and if it's a thing I have to buy, a link to a site where I can buy one would be nice. Thanks everyone for your patience and time. Hopefully someone can help me with this problem.

jyst buy an aftermarket deck... tou'll be much happoer with the stuff in the end... it makes speakers dound os much netter... just trust me dude,, but an aftermarked deck!

For installation, just buy the wiring harness, and installation will be a snap. As for the radio stations, you have to connect the aftermaket stereo's remote wire to the aftermarket wiring harness's power antenna wire.

Any way you could illustrate the correct wires? I'm new to the whole DIY stereo installation part (especially with the wires). I get all the other stuff I need and know how to do it but I'm just confused as to which specific wires I need to hookup.

First off, what year is your Alero and what harness are you getting? (chime or non chime) If you buy the one you need for your car, you just need to connect the wires from the aftermarket harness, to the wires from the aftermarket stereo. The instructions will tell you which ones.
One thing that is very important though, which a lot of people forget, is to connect the antenna wire. There is going to be a wire on the aftermarket harness that says power antenna. You need to make sure you connect that wire, to the remote wire that comes from the aftermarket HU. If you don't do this, your radio will not get any stations.
For now, just get the harness and the head unit. If after seeing them both, you still have questions, go ahead and ask. After seeing the instructions though, everything should be pretty straightforward.

I have a 1999 Alero GL sedan. 3400 V6 if you need to know. I'm not sure what type of harness I'm going to get since I didn't know there was a difference haha.

Youll be okay with the regular harness.
The reason I had asked about the year is that later Aleros use the harness with the chimes (around $40), and if you dont get the one with the chimes you need to get one from a saturn or something. Since you have a 99, you don't need to worry about this though.

OK, got the stereo today but have one final question. The "system remote control" wire (that's what it's called) that comes from the head unit, is that the wire that goes to the "power antenna" wire and the wire that goes to the subwoofer amp to turn it on and off? If it's not then there is no other wires to connect the power antenna to. Thanks for all your help!

You got it. That's pretty much it. Also, don't forget the antenna cable that you plug into the head unit. I don't know if you already have that adapter for this, but if you don't, you may need one (I'm not sure if it varies from year to year).

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Thank you sensei :lol:

Yes thanks to everyone for all of your help! Installation went fairly easy. The only thing is that the stock radio is still a little better at picking up radio stations. I can pick them up, just not as good as the stock radio did. Oh well, I usually just plug in my iPod into it anyways haha. My new radio is a Pioneer Premier DEH-P310UB and I like it very much!

Check the system out!