GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Howdy gang, I'm finally getting ready to install a new Kenwood head unit in my Vibe. Can't wait to have BT, USB and so on! Anyway, I had a question on the wire harness. I bought it at Crutchfield so I have the supplied Wire harness from them. I haven't done any stereo installs for a long time and want to clarify a couple things. Sorry, probably dumb questions for you pro's out there. Anyway, here goes: I connected all the typical wires (Ground to ground, Red to Red, etc.) from the adapter harness to the Kenwood harness but a few puzzled me: Here goes: 1) I'm assuming the factory harness is grounded so I only need to connect the black wire of the Adapter harness to the black wire on the Kenwood harness. A seperate ground is not necessary, correct?2) I will be installing an amp - intially I connected the blue/white wires of each harness together. Now I'm thinking I need to connect the remote turn on wire from the amp with these blue/white wires from each harness, right?3) The Orange/white wire mixed me up so I called Crutchfield to double check. I ended up connecting the Orange 'Illumination' wire from the Adapter harness to the Orange/white wire on the Kenwood harness that's labeled Illlumination. Does that sound right? And, I understand with that wire connected when I dim my dash lights it will also dim the stereo? I don't think I care if that works like that. I think I'd rather have the stereo not connected to the dash lights. So, to do that I should just leave all the Orange/White and Orange Wires disconnected then??4) So, that leaves a few extra wires. If I don't connect the Orange/white and orange 'Illumination' wires that would also leave a brown 'Mute', Dark Blue 'Ant Cont', green/yellow 'Steering wheel remote input' wires not connected. I would just wrap/tape these off and they won't be used???I think that's it - thanks in advance for the feedback! Cheers!

1) You should only need the factory ground & not have to worry about a second ground elsewhere2) the blue/white wire is an amp turn on wire, you don't need to connect the two wires if you don't have a factory amp, if you do have a factory amp, add in a wire for your aftermarket amp down the road3) Some illumination wires are orange & some are orange/white. if you don't care about illumination control, don't worry about connecting these wires together.4) tape off or heat shrink any wires you're not using. making sure that the wires can't short to the chassis or to each other

Ok, great - thanks for the info VibeBear! As for 2) I don't have a factory amp but will be installing an aftermarket one during this install. So, I'll connect the Amp Turn on lead wire from the amp to the Blue/white on the Kenwood harness.Thanks again! Can't wait to get it in there.

Did connecting the orange wire on the harness to the orange/white on the HU work for the dimmer when the lights turn on?

I had this question when I unfortunately somehow "volunteered" to help a co-worker install a JVC nav in an Altima. I think the orange/white needs a steady, full +12V when the lights are on. The orange is a variable voltage depending on where the dimmer knob is set. The fella at Crutchfield said I had to tap into the headlight switch somewhere, which i didn't want to do and just told him to use the time-based automatic day/night setup.

Ok so thats what i needed to know, i have the battery out and im to lazy to hook it back up to see which wire it is, so the orange wire is variable voltage and the orange/white is a constant 12v when the headlights are on correct?