first off i did a search and looked through the stickies and couldnt find anything. if theres already a post bout this please just point me in the right direction.

ok its a 98 maxima and when i bought it there was a head unit already in and it had no memory. i put a sony head unit in and still had no memory. today i just put in a dual HU, Model: XDMR7700. no matter what i do i cannot get the head unit to have memory. cant save the sound settings and no radio presets. the one thing that i thought was a little weird was the radio will only turn on when the antenna is plugged in. i dont know if this is normal on maximas or not but through the other 8 cars ive owned and all the HU's ive installed ive used the ground wire to get the HU on. right now i dont even have the ground wire hooked up to anything and the radios on. someone please help me!!!!

 

you should have two power wires, one that has power when the ignition is turned on, and another that has power at all times. And I'm almost sure the antenna has to be plugged in.

It sounds to me like whoever hooked up the first stereo only used the ignition wire, which would mean it would lose complete power every time the car was turned off. Find a diagram of the wiring on a 98 and you will be able to find the battery wire, or you can run your own to your fuse box.

 

well what i had to do to get the HU working was hook up the red and yellow form the HU to the red and yellow from the dash. i tested them both and they added up to 12 volts. just to get it to turn on all 4 had to be hooked up together. any idea on what colors are the constant and the ignition. i thought the constant was red and ignition was yellow but if they're all hooked up together i should have memory right?

 

man, that don't sound good to me at all, sounds like you have two power wires hooked together and that could bring on a whole mess of things.... best thing to do is get a tester. you can get a cheap one for a few bucks. But I would definetely do this tomorrow. I've never heard of someone hooking up two power wires together. Usually the red is the ignition wire, and the yellow is the battery wire.

 

Whoa. Disconnect this immediately.

First off, most Nissan's dont have a ground in the factory wiring harness. Right now the radio's chassis is using the antenna as a ground, but your radio isn't really grounded.
Second, wires should never be connected together. On an aftermarket harness, constant is yellow and switched is red. They need to have 12v independently of each other. Get yourself a multimeter, even a $10 walmart one, and test out the voltage of each individual wire. Then turn the key to the on position and test the voltage on each side of every fuse in the car, just to be sure, because things in your car sound shady. Each side of the fuse should read the same voltage. Once you fix the blown ones, rewire the head unit color-matched normally, and ground it to bare metal, and Im guessing youll have yourself a properly working head unit.

 

you don't have the ground wire hooked up? maybe it would be best if you took it to someone else who knew what they were doing. I'm sorry, but you are scaring me with your wiring. I'm surprised you haven't had smoke rolling out of your dash. I'm not trying to be mean, but how do you expect a radio to work without a ground wire?

 

k here we go..the car came this way when i got it and i thought it was pretty messed up myself but everything worked fine no problems at all except no memory. ive had the car for about 6 months and the head units have been hooked up this way and ive had no problems at all so im not that worried about it right now. second i did test the wires with a volt meter. one wire was 9 volts one wire was 3 volts. they would not power the HU individually only when the were hooked up together. the HU would only turn on when all 4 wires were hooked togehter. all i know is that whoever had the car before me did a SERIOUS hack job when they installed their headunit. ive never seen so much electircal tape and wires wrapped in tape that were connected to nothing AT ALL.

so what im getting from you guys is that i should just rip everything out and start from scratch?..i cant take the radio out now cuz its midnight but i should probably just leave it off until i get to it tomorrow right.. you guys are makin me nervous

 

Fuses can be partially blown. Do what I posted, mainly with fuses, and let us know the results.

 

you mean every fuse in the fuse panel? and do you think ill be alright until tomorrow if i leave the head unit off?

 

Yes, every fuse in the entire car, just to be safe. Each fuse will have two little metal contacts on the top of it, and they should both read the same voltage. Yes, youll be okay. Even if wrong wires touch each other, thats what the fuses are there for.

 

alright so no smoke barreling out of my dash like the guy up there said? ill get to this tomorrow and let you guys know watsup. thanks for the help..you guys are quick on this site

 

The way its wired now does sound risky, but no, smoke won't pour out of your dash. Fuses are there to do their job.

No problem.

 

I had this same problem, but when i took out the factory bose, i just ran a wire from the fuse panel hooked to a fuse with constant 12volts to my memory wire on the hu... HU memory wire is always solid yellow i beleive..

May be "rigged" but it works perfectly for me...

 

And you drive around everyday knowing that problems exist in your car's wiring somewhere. No matter how big or small, thats never something I can do. Call me **** if you want...because I am.

 

your ****

 

I wouldnt do that either when something behind the HU should be working properly I fix it. There are 3 main fuses I would check out, Audio in the fuse bose on the driver side under the hood. Audio in the fuse box under the steering wheel and Electronic parts or something similar to that in the one under the steering wheel. If those pan out start checking all of them.

 

i had the same problem a week ago when i put my JVC AVX-2. it would only work if i put the both red wires and the yellow together. so what i did just pulled a constant wire from the fuse box where it says AUDIO on the 1st row on the fuse box its a 7.5 to the radio so its working perfectly. hope this helps

 

That's not really a fix for it. Just a way to make it work.

 

well, in my mind it's fixed at least... But im **** about other things so i can see ur point