Car Stereos: Aftermarket stereo., 2006 chevy malibu, chevy malibu

Question
QUESTION: Hi, so ive had a real pain. My buddy volunteered to help install a sub system i purchased him without knowing the amount of work we'd be putting into it. My vehicle is a 2006 chevy malibu LT, i took out the stock stereo and all and disconnected the stock harness thinking i would need to strip the wires but only to find out we didnt need to. reconnecting the wires i found 2 wire/black striped wires and 2 teal or aqua left over that i cannot find which goes to which, but i have power to my aftermarket. but speakers will not work with aftermarket and so i reconnected the stock without those white/black & teal wires and iheard static so i know the speakers are connected. i worked on just this stereo problem for a little over 9 hours today please help.  the stereo is a DUAL XDM-7510 if that helps.

ANSWER: Hi Cody,

I'm not really clear on what you've got going on there.  As I understand it, you're trying to install an after-market Dual head unit into your Malibu.

Are you using an adapter harness to connect the new head unit to the vehicle?  If so, what's the brand and model of the adapter?  If you didn't use an adapter harness, did you cut off the factory plug and match the wires?  If so, what wire color code are you using?  Are the leftover wires coming from the Dual head unit, or the stock wire harness; and have they been cut, or do they terminate in a stock plug?

Try to give me as much detail as you can, start to finish; I'll sort out the things I need to know from the things I don't.  Once I have a clearer idea of your situation, I'll do my best to help you out.

Thanks

Brian

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes im using an adapter harness. what the problem was at first they had givin me the wrong harness. so my friend and i cut the wires off trying to just connect it to the dual head unit. which after a while of just blowing fuses and nothing working.  we called back and got ahold of a place with the right adapter its the Metra 70-2003 and we connected the red wire to the fuse box and used cable ends to connect the factory harness to the wires except for 4 wires. 2 teal which i believe are just dimmer switches. but 2 that are white with black stripes that i cant seem to find to work, after reconnecting it so many times yesterday the dual head unit will power on and play cds and all. but for some reason nothing will play from speakers, and i reconnected to stock stereo and static from the radio was atleast from the speakers. the left over wires are coming from the factory stereo harness we disconnected all but those 4; 2 of exact same color were connected properly.
Thanks for all the help

Cody

Answer
Hi Cody,

Thanks, that clears things up quite a bit.

I don't know the function of the white/black and teal leftover wires, but there's a good chance that they aren't required for the after-market head unit to work.

I think your problem is that you still don't have quite the right adapter harness.  The correct harness for your vehicle is a Metra 70-2102.  The 70-2003 is very similar, and can be made to fit the plug (although you probably had to force it, or modify the factory plug slightly).  It also has the power and ground wires in the same location; but the speaker pin positions are completely different in the two harnesses.  I don't think your Dual head unit's speaker outputs, with the 2003 adapter, are connected to the speakers.

To check, take a close look at the harness where it connects to the factory plug.  You should be able to look at the after-market wire, and see which wire matches it in the factory plug: for example, the yellow constant power wire should match with a red/white (or orange) factory wire, and the black ground wire should match with a black/white factory wire.

Here's how the speaker wires should line up, with the harness wire first and the factory wire second:

White to tan
white/black to gray
gray to light green
gray/black to dark green
green to dark brown
green/black to yellow
violet to dark blue
violet/black to light blue

If the after-market wire colors don't match up with the correct factory speaker wires, you have the wrong harness, and that's the source of your problem.  (With either harness, you'll need to keep the extra accessory power wire to the fuse box).

In the 2102 harness, the speaker wires are in a straight line, in pins A1 through A8.  In the 2003 harness, the speaker wires are in a block, filling pins A8 to A11, and B8 to B11.

If you determine that you have the wrong adapter harness, you have two options:

1.  Purchase the correct harness, or
2.  Pull the speaker wires out of their current positions in the 2003 harness, and push them into the positions that match the factory speaker wire colors I listed above.

Hope this helps!

Brian

Edit:  I revised this answer because I originally gave the wrong Metra part number as the correct harness:  it's the 70-2102, not the 70-2104.  Sorry for any confusion.