Car Stereos: head unit instalation, gmrc, factory radio

Question
whats up brian before selling my toyota i took out the aftermarket head unit that worked absolutly fine tried putting it in my 2002 cavalier with the appropriate wiring harness and mounting kit but before i put the dash back together i checked to see if it would even turn on but it wouldnt turn on. Im almost positive that all wires are spliced correctly if you have any ideas please email me back

Answer
Hi Mike,

What wire harness are you using in the Cavalier?  The 2000+ Cavalier has some oddities that make a head unit installation more challenging, or at least more expensive.  One issue is that there's no key-switched "accessory" power connection in the factory radio plug; you may have a harness that fits the plug, but you'll find that the red wire in the adapter harness doesn't line up with any factory wire.  In this case, you'll either need a specialty adapter harness (like Metra's GMRC-01) which will provide a switched power output, or you'll need to do some extra wiring to connect the new head unit's red power wire to a key-switched power source elsewhere in the vehicle.

Hope this helps!

Brian