Aftermarket car decks or car radios can greatly increase the quality of the sound that you hear in your car. Most of the newer car decks have options to add satellite radio and even directly connect MP3 players or iPods to them. Aftermarket car decks will also allow you to fully customize the sound in your car by allowing you to add CD changers, component speakers and sub woofers. There are some cars that are easier to have car decks installed in which could take less than an hour to do, but some car deck installations can take up to three hours if you have to take the dash off.
Open the hood of the car and disconnect the negative terminal on the battery. This will prevent any accidental power spikes that could ruin your new equipment. You may need to use a wrench or socket set to loosen the bolt on the terminal cable to remove.
Remove the old car radio (deck) from the dash. This will consist of locating hook tabs and depressing them to allow removal of old deck, the pry bar and screw driver will be used to accomplish this. Once the deck has been removed from the dash you will have to disconnect all wires in the rear of it which consists of the wiring harness and antenna. On some models of cars you will have to remove part of the dash to gain access to the radio, check with your user manual of car to see if you will have to do this.
Insert the new car deck mounting sleeve into the recently vacated slot in the dash. Using the screwdriver, bend down as many tabs as you can on each side to secure hold the sleeve in place.
Connect the wiring harness to the existing wiring setup on the car. Connect the antenna adapter from the car deck to the antenna hookup on the car.
Slide the car deck into the sleeve. Screw the mounting sleeve and deck into the dash with the supplied screws. You may need a dash kit for certain models of cars, so check with the retailer to see if one is required.
Reconnect the negative terminal on the battery, turn your car on, and test out the new car radio you have installed.
