Replacing old head unit

[motoroil34]

I am replacing the factory radio head unit for aftermarket one. Anyone whos done this any info would be appreciated. What plug and play harness did you purchase? I don't give a *shoot* about the door chimes whether I loose them or not, very annoying to start with. Any info would be great, thank you in advance!

[Oldman]

Sorry you're not getting any responses. Mostly us "gear heads" here. If you cut and re-post in the audio section of the forum, you'll get lots of helpful responses.
Good luck!

[nos4blood70]

What trim is your car? SE/SLE, or GXP? From there we can help you with what you need.

[redfury]

Buy Metra parts if you plan to use the steering wheel controls...I've read these seem to be the easier brand to work with in that regard. The adapter for the wiring harness is pretty much going to be the same regardless. If you don't get the door chime module, you will possibly need to run an ign switched 12v lead to the dash to get proper power to the head unit ( I could be wrong as I've only dealt with my 2000 SLE in that regard ) Otherwise you will have a stereo that you have to manually turn off every time you shut off the car.

[motoroil34]

The car does not have steering wheel controls anyway so that is not an issue, although I would like to wire the 12v power just so I know I don't have to deal with a dead battery every other day. My question is if I order the around $10 wire harness your positive that will work? With the 12v power of course.

[redfury]

Yup, that's all I have in mine, cheap harness and a 12v lead run from under the seat fuse box ( I popped the channel open and ran the wire inside of it and along and tucked up into the passenger side trim all the way to the firewall, around the passenger footwell and up into the radio compartment. Can't see a lick of it and all it took was just tucking to keep it in place.

The harness adapter has 4 sets of stereo wires that match any aftermarket radio, a few brown data lines that don't so you any good, a ground, an orange wire for illumination, a red wire that I think would turn the amp on since it's not powered, and 2 yellow battery constant wires for the radio memory. If you buy it for your bonneville, it should come with instructions for each wire. I had to figure out most of them based on the wiring harness of the radio and using a multimeter to verify voltages.

[samples08]

when i installed a temporary unit in my 2002 pontiac bonneville i used the harnesses you can get from walmart i see no reason why you would need an additional power supply wire unless the 00-01 have something funky going on because they have ribbons instead of wires, but it should be plug n play you will also need a antenna adapter as our antenna's do not fit aftermarket radio's unless you want to run a completely new antenna and mount it somewhere out side of the car but that will require making a hole in the body and making sure its a ground-able place so you don't have back grounding issues, but besides all that im pretty sure you will be fine with a walmart wiring kit and a radio installation kit.