I have an 02 Maxima SE with the ever so crappy stock HU. I wanted to replace it, but i've heard so many different opinions on what needs to be done i'm EXTREMELY confused. All i want to do is replace the HU and still have all 7 speakers/tweeters/sub whatever you want to call them. What is the least i have to do to accomplish this? I'm 18, going to college soon, so the less cash i have to spend the better. PLEASE any help is really appreciated.

I HATE CLARION

 

You could learn from my ignorance and near mistakes in the thread "6th Gen Bose ..."
The new HU approach is revealed to me in post #7, and continues from there, with the checklist described in post #10 by djfrestyl.

Checking out Crutchfield's site may also help you out.

If I learned my lesson correctly, this should help you...

I don't know enough about 5th gens to know if you have a Bose HU or not, so you may want to clarify if possible, so that those more knowledgeable can assist. In any case it's roughly the same approach for what you want to do, which is to get your speakers to hook up to the new head unit.

If you have Bose, there's 2 routes:
If your new head unit has pre-amp RCA jacks with >= 4v, you can use a Metra 70-7551 harness to connect your speakers to these pre-amp outputs.
If your new head unit does not have >= 4v (many have 2v), you can use a PAC OEM-2 to convert speaker level outputs to pre-amp level outputs. You'll need the PAC OEM-2 and a "standard" Metra 70-7550 harness to connect it all together.

If you have non-Bose, a Metra 70-7550 harness gets the job done, connecting to the speaker level outputs of the new head unit.

You'll also want an antenna adapter and a dash kit. Metra makes those as well.

All that's left is picking the head unit you want. You may want to ask djfrestyl if he still has that Eclipse CD3000...

 

Gahh, i can't believe i forgot to post it was BOSE/BLOWS, that's the main reason everything's so difficult. As to crutchfield thbosee part the recommended would only make 4 of the 7 speakers work so that's out, i just really don't know what to do

 

I'm pretty sure that even the Bose head units only have left/right and front/back.

The 7 speakers all draw from those leads. The sub probably draws it's signal from a composite of all 4 signals, and the tweeter/driver pair in the front is a combined "front" and the rear deck speakers in the back are "rear".

The trick is that they are all wired up to a harness that plugs into the Bose HU. If you get a matching harness (the Metra 70-7550 or 70-7551), it makes your new HU "look like" the Bose HU electrically, and the wiring already in place should handle the rest.

You could check other posts, or even call a Crutchfield advisor (free phone call) to verify.

 

I'm not sure and i'm to the point i just don't really want to mess with it, thanks for all the advice though.

On an different subject to anyone, will an 01 or 03 radio work in my 02?

 

Presuming my situation goes well, you'll at least have that as a reference point.

The plan is to replace the Bose HU with a JVC HU using 70-7551 harness and probably a SWI-JACK steering control interface.

I can't speak to the other year's radios working, but I would have guessed so.