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Aftermarket head unit produces no sound?

Tiny
LLIW06
  • MEMBER
  • 2003 NISSAN FRONTIER
  • 200,000 MILES
I bought an aftermarket head unit because the stock one had no Bluetooth or aux and that is a must for me. I had recently installed dual 12s and wired those correctly so I'm familiar with wiring in this specific vehicle. I cut the wires from the stock head unit harness and spliced them with the wires from the new harness and head unit. I didn't buy a harness adapter or anything like that so it's straight from stock wires to aftermarket wires. The new head unit turns on and works perfectly, yet there is no sound. I'm certain that I've wired everything correctly because I have triple-checked the wires. I'm just trying to figure out why there is absolutely no sound coming from this new HU.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 9:08 AM

42 Replies

Tiny
AL514
  • MECHANIC
  • 4,662 POSTS
Hello, we can pull up the OEM wiring diagrams for the audio system for you. But I need more info on the vehicle, because there are various setups and base vs premium audio systems with a built in amp as well as steering wheel controls.
There is the 3.3liter V6 2wd or 4wd with or without Supercharger. Or the 2.4liter 2wd model. And then there is an option for "Base Radio system 2 or 4 door" and then Premium Sound Radio system 2 or 4 door" model. Or you can just post your vin number and we can look it up by that.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 11:39 AM
Tiny
AL514
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There's even a difference between the 2 or 4 door Premium Audio system, the 2 door does not have a additional amp for the rear speakers, but the 4 door does. Just to give you an example. This is the 4 Door Premium system, 3.3L V6 non supercharger vehicle. It has an amp for the rear speakers and sub.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 11:44 AM
Tiny
LLIW06
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My VIN is 1N6DD26T53C458443.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 2:14 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Okay, so. It still gives different options for that VIN.
The OEM diagrams and the aftermarket diagrams are a bit different; do you have 2 or 4 door model?
And how did you wire the 2 subs into the old radio?
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 2:50 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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It’s the 2-door model and there is no speaker in the rear, only front doors and tweeters. The way I wired the old sub in was through a LOC, but now the sub is completely disconnected because I wanted to figure out the radio situation before trying to wire the subs into the new radio.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 3:18 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Okay, the 1st diagram is the aftermarket 2 door base radio setup; the 2nd is the OEM wiring diagram. The Premium setup has controls on the steering wheel as well. So that's a difference as well. See if these diagrams match the wiring colors you have.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 3:33 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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So, that first diagram, the colored one, is the one I've based the wiring off of and those colors match perfectly. I don’t have steering wheel controls for anything. Both the lighting switch and the illum ctrl I currently have not hooked up because the new wiring harness doesn’t have any wires for those. I’ll add a photo of the aftermarket harness diagram and how I currently have the wires set up.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 3:46 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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I apologize, the red wire is currently hooked up this was before I finished so the picture isn’t up to date, but every wire is currently hooked up except for the illum ctrl and the lighting switch.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 3:48 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Have you checked for 12-volts on the power feeds? I would make sure you have a full 12volts on each, and also verify the ground is good. If you have a 12-volt test light or multimeter.
Something I just noticed on both of these wiring diagrams is this ground, it almost looks like the old radio had some type of case ground, is there a Black wire from the old radio harness in the connector there? It looks out of place on these diagrams.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:07 PM
Tiny
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I don't even see a ground listed for connector M50 or M51, strange.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:17 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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The thing I noticed when I cut away the old harness was that there was no ground cable. When I wired in the new harness, I haven’t connected the ground wire to anything simply because there is no ground wire from the stock wires to connect it to, but I assumed the new head unit was getting ground somehow considering it turns on fine and works fine just no audio comes from it.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:19 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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Could that be the culprit? I just don’t understand how the old radio would have a ground while the new head unit wouldn’t, when there’s no stock ground wire to ground the stock radio.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:24 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Yeah, but it might be grounding through one of the other wires, I would ground the correct wire on the new head unit. It's black, correct? The new head unit might be grounding through one of the speaker wires since they are constantly grounded. Strangely I think the old radio was grounded through the case to that metal case I see in you dash picture.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:26 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Check this out.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:29 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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Okay, I'll do that in the morning. Let's say that doesn’t work. What else do you think could be causing the no audio? Because seemingly everything is hooked up the same way as the stock HU except for the ground wire.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:33 PM
Tiny
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I would verify you have power on the two power wires, make sure one of those fuses didn't pop. But I think you're going to find this is a grounding issue. Not enough current can flow on whatever path its taking to ground. If its grounding through the speaker wires, there is resistance threw the speakers as well, so ground it and check the 2 fuses if needed.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:46 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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Okay, perfect, i’ll update you tomorrow after I do as said.
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 4:54 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Here are a couple of guides for checking power with a multimeter or test light if needed:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-use-a-voltmeter

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-use-a-test-light-circuit-tester
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Monday, February 5th, 2024 AT 5:02 PM
Tiny
LLIW06
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Okay, so, I connected the ground wire from the new harness to the negative terminal of the battery using speaker wire (ik there’s ground closer but I decided to use speaker wire because I had a lot of extra and I don’t want to put time into sanding and securing a ground if it's not the problem). There is still no sound. My test light is broken, and my multimeter is dead so I'm going to run to the store for new batteries. The new head unit I'm using isn’t the issue because I swapped it out for the same one and still no sound. If I wired one of the speakers wrong, would that make the whole system not produce noise because if that’s the case I'll go through and re-wire everything again. One other thing I'll include is the blue amp turn on/power antenna is currently not hooked up to anything and I'm not sure what to wire that to because I can’t find a matching one on the stock diagram. Originally, I had it wired up to the ignition/ACC wire in the new harness with the ACC green/red wire in the stock harness but sense then I've unplugged it because it hasn’t done anything differently while hooked up.
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Tuesday, February 6th, 2024 AT 10:12 AM
Tiny
AL514
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Well, it sounds like you hooked up the speaker wires correctly, I mean they're not that difficult. The only other thing I can think of is that the memory power wire touched ground and blew the fuse. The Amp On power wire is just going to be an output wire. This memory wire is hot at all times, so if it touched any ground it would blow the fuse.
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Tuesday, February 6th, 2024 AT 11:34 AM

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