Car Stereo How to

This is the way I found my car on thursday... "stereoless"! And my driver's window was broken into a million pieces. Instead of posting a rant about that (even though the guys were complete idiots and could have stolen the stupid stereo without breaking anything), I decided to show you how to install a new car stereo. It might seem complicated, but it's a lot simpler than you may think.


Here's a picture of what you'll find at the start. On the left, you'll see two black connectors. Those are for the power supply and speaker connections. On the right you'll see the radio antena (the grey one). My radio cable is so short that I would have to disassemble the whole front panel in order to connect it properly... but I don't listen to radio anyway, so I did not connect that one. Could be solved with an extension cable.


The first thing you'll do is to put the radio fixation structure. You just push it in place and then bend these little metal pieces that it has down, so that it stays there. Give it a pull or two before continuing, to make sure that it's stuck... if it isn't, then bend some more (there are a lot of them, they are usually triangular shaped and you can easily see them if you zoom in the picture.


Next thing I did was prepare the stereo itself. Other stereos have this kind of complicated metal pieces and screws that you have to assemble so that the stereo's back won't be in direct contact with the car. It kind of makes sense since that's where the heat dissipation is done. The Sony guys made it simple by adding a rubber piece that will do all that, and you simply screw that on. Done. You might notice the connector on the stereo has nothing to do with the ones in the car, and that will take us to the next point.


Every stereo should comply with the standard connectors, and have an adapter in case it doesn't. In my case, the adapter had 2 connectors, and the car had 3... hmmm which ones to connect? Well the 1st connector in the car is a proprietary thing that isn't even the same size as the two in the adapter. Then it's just a question of counting pins in the the connectors. It's really simple.


Before you push the stereo in, connect the cables and check that it's working... after that, push it in until you ear a click: that click means that in order to take the radio out you must use two pieces of metal that come with the radio... don't worry, any robber will have a set of those, is just so that no ordinary people won't just yank it out.


Final step, put in a piece that covers the metal parts, and XARAM! you have now installed your own stereo. I know people that have paid 50, 60€ for this service. I did it in 10 minutes... it would have been 5 if I hadn't taken the pictures and paced myself so that I didn't screw it up.

An important note: I have to thank Vasco Nevoa. The first time I had to assemble a stereo, he helped me out, we almost beat it with a hammer so that it would fit. But I guess the best way to honer a teacher is to show that you learned the lesson. So thanks Vasco! Your time was not wasted :D