Trying to sell a 93 SE, and I'm having a problem with the Bose stereo. Bought the car with the Bose tape deck, and it wasn't working for **** (it was stuck on an AM station and pushing buttons or trying to change to FM did nothing). So I was happy to find this unit at the junkyard a couple weeks ago.



Plugged right in, fired right up, stereo sounded awesome. I was quite happy to be done with that. Until the next time I drove the car (I had only tested the stereo with the car off, key in ACC). Screen was blank, pressing any button did nothing, even the "DISC" light in the corner was off. I figured I blew a fuse. Got home, checked em, no blown fuses. Then suddenly the "DISC" light started working again, and i could eject the disc. Putting the disc back in did nothing though, even though I could hear the laser moving from track to track when I pressed "next track", and the screen was blank. One other occasion, the screen was working, it appeared to be working normally, but no sound came out.

Most confusing part is that I can disconnect the battery cable, put it back on, try the radio, and it works perfect the first time. Next time I go to use it, back to the same tricks.

Anyone have any ideas besides "the radio is bad?" I'm tempted to put a reset button on the dash to cut the main power to the head unit. At least then it'll work each time you reset it.

Thanks for any info.

 

The radio is bad

 

umm...it's Bose in a 3rd gen. Something is bound to be wrong.

Sounds like it is having some kind of internal problem, since it isn't the fuse.

 

Gotcha. I know almost nothing about 3rd gens, so I guess it's pretty common for these systems not to work right. Dang it!

I scored a nice 2-din tape/CD combo out of a 98 200SX, I wonder if there's any way I can get it to work with the bose system. Guess I'll read some stickies.

 

Did you wire it good? Or just twist them together?
Sounds like illumination is messing up, check that wire.
Or its the HU itself internally messed up.

 

i wold think he would just use the factory harness since he said he got another factory hu.

 

I had the same thing and finally replaced the unit. I actually did what you mentioned and added a toggle switch in the power line and temporarily cut power to the unit. It worked for about 6 months until the unit finally gave up the ghost.

 

Indeed, this is a factory hu that plugged right in. No wires to connect or twist.

jaimzb60, so you had the same problem, huh? If I could get that Sentra radio to work, that would be ideal (got it for $12, it works perfect) but I am guessing an amplified signal going into a Bose amp would be a bad thing. This radio sure would look nice in the 93 Maxima dash though.

 

so I searched, read a bunch of stickies, but came up with nothing. There has to be someone somewhere that attempted to install a non-Bose hu into a Bose car. I'm just curious what happened. I'm guessing the likely outcome was either "didn't work at all" or "fried my bose amps/speakers." Definitely don't want to find out the latter in my own car.

Guess I'll maybe pull out the Bose hu, power it up on the bench and compare output voltages.

 

It will work, but who knows for how long. The resistance to the Bose amps is lower than the 4ohms a stereo would normally see. You'll lose a lot of the sensitivity/accuracy in your volume **** since a much smaller voltage goes to the Bose Amps than would be used to drive speakers.

So you might get 100% Bose volume at 1/4 of the HU 's max position. I don't think it's that bad, honestly. I've had 2 different HU's (Alpine & Kenwood) drive the Bose System. I have since replaced the Bose with better stuff. But it will work...it will just get loud really fast.

 

You could just bypass the amps and wire the signal wires directly to the speakers with a resistor in between.

The two small wires going to the amp are the signal wires so you would just cut those before they go into the amp and wire those directly to the speaker. I can't remember off hand the color/polarity combination but its easy enough to figure out, just hook them up then check to see which way the speaker moves. If it moves in, swap the wires and you're good to go.

 

Cutting those wires is a pain in the ***, since first you have to unloom them, then cut, then reattach and reloom. The quick simple solution is probably to get a line drive adapter. Supposedly even Wal-Mart sells them, although I've never seen them in my local one. That way you could even update in the future to an aftermarket radio.

But even that will require you to cut into the factory harness. Personally, I'd opt for the KISS solution and not cut anything. Just don't **** on the volume, and you should be ok.

 

So it is possible to just put speaker-level outputs into the Bose system. If you got away hooking it up like that with aftermarket headunits (which almost always have more internal amplification than an OEM hu) then I'm guessing a Sentra hu will work just fine. I guess it's worth a try. Only problem is that the wire harnesses are different (93 vs. 98). Idunno, I bought the Sentra radio to sell for a profit on ebay (I paid $12, I've seen em sell for around $100) so I might just put a toggle switch on the existing Bose radio since it works pretty well after you cycle the power.

But thanks for all the tips

 

bose systems are 1ohm. by wiring the sentra hu to the bose system you could damage the hu itself. not to mention speakers as well. there are bypass kits (convert 4 ohm output to 1 ohm) for the bose systems but they dont seem to have a good reputation for durability. best thing to do if you want to use sentra hu is to eliminate bose amps and direct wires str8 to the speakers. if im not mistaken the speakers have a 1 ohm input also so you would do better to replace them. otherwise your sound will be dampened dramatically (or vise versa) i havnt done a setup using a direct output with an incorrect ohm load in a while so i forgot how it goes exactly

 

i have seen thme in my local wal-mart. looks as though its a bunch of bs. didnt feel it was worth the money to try out

 

resistance load was definitely one of my concerns. Sounds like that might be the key item that the better converters do for you.

This whole discussion ALMOST has me curious enough to try this Sentra hu in my wife's 95 GLE since it would be a direct connection. Just to see how it works. I actually do plan to pull hers out soon to do a direct wire-in (into the changer input) with her XM tuner. Eh, I'll probably have this Sentra hu sold on ebay before I get around to that project.

 

yes the converters do that for you but not 4 every. they will eventually die.