ferg

im waiting till they work out the bugs to get one, wait is good sometimes

Rx8-13b

anybody in vancouver bc who has a cable?? i live there and im down for a group meet to get this solved out to owners =D

raphy3

Here's a question: how the hell do people fit everything back there in the dash? The radio combined with the massive amount of wires plus the swi-jack, I can't get it all to fit back there.

For people with Kenwood navs, how do you get it to not blow your ears out when using the nav system? I'll have the radio volume super low and switch the the nav and wake up half the neighborhood and worry about blowing out my speakers.

Plus there are two green wires in the metra kit... supposed to be for one of the rear speakers, one of the green wires is coming out of the orange wiring harness, the other is coming out of the plug that plugs into the axxess box...
Are we supposed to connect both of them to the HU wire? I couldn't figure that one out so left the green wire that comes from the plug in the axxess box unconnected and only connected the green wires that comes from the orange wire harness to the HU.
Also are people getting HU dimming when you turn your lights on? Mine's not dimming, but I connected the orange and white wire to the dimmer wire on my HU. There is a plain orange wire from the metra kit that's going unconnected; wonder if I should try that one instead.

rollerbldes

Please view the sticky on speaker sizes, harnesses, etc. It will tell you about every wire on the harness. The dimmer wire you want is the INVERTED DIMMING pin G.

As far as the kenwood nav, you can adjust the nav volume within the settings. Please read your manual.

The SWI module can be fit in the room under where the radio goes. Exactly where metra tells you to trim that piece of plastic on your dash.

For the other wires coming out of the AXXESS box, please read your manual.

raphy3

I've read them, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make the connections in the first place to get the things working with sound and fan and AC/heat at all. Thanks for the info about the reverse dimming pin. I just read up on that in some links form the stickies and seems that I'll need to switch to the other orange wire in the metra kit.

I've also adjusted the nav volume manually within the settings already: that's sort of the point, the nav voice directions volume is way too high at the lowest possible volume setting. It's like the speakers are getting too much power or something.

I trimmed my dash piece, the front of it so that the axxess box could fit in, but honestly things are still pretty tight fitting back there. I cut the vertical piece that connects the top and bottom of the piece, above the left screwhole. At this point I'm getting ready to completely cut up the whole plastic thing that separated the radio compartment from the lower compartment so that all the wires can dangle down back there.

Also in the metra manual there's nothing about having two green wires, one from the harness and one from the axxess plug. It even says "right rear positive" on both of them. Did you just connect both of those to your HU so you have three green wires soldered together? That seems pretty odd. The metra manual is pretty lean honestly, there isn't much more to be gleaned from it.

I'm going to have to go back over these connections.

On the plus side my axxess box seems to be working without any major bugs yet. The LEDs on the climate control panel all work properly, hazard light works, everything seems normal there.

rollerbldes

95-7510 Manual Page 6
Final Assembly
#7 The following wires on the 10 pin harness are for the aftermarket radios that have navigation built in:
A. Connect green wire to parking brake wire
B. Connect blue/pink wire to VSS or speed sense wire
C. Connect green/purple wire to the reverse wire
NOTE: Reverse output is NOT present on manual transmission vehicles.

In short: you do not need to connect any of these on the kenwood radio. Just terminate the ends so they do not short against anything.

IM SORRY I GAVE YOU WRONG INFO ON DIMMER!! You want the PULSED DIMMER TNS+ Pin E! The Inverted Dimmer will still work, you just have to dim down your dash real low for the signal to register.

As far as A/C leds.. the glitch will happen to you eventually.. I'll guarantee it.

hayasa8

No problems yet, save weirdness with low voltage. When my battery was low during my install I got some weird characters on screen.

raphy3

Ok, looks like I was really really dumb on that one. I was thrown off by the fact that both green wires had the same insulator and the reverse wire actually says "rear right positive" on the insulator.

You're right, it's in the manual, and I even read it several times. talk about being absent minded.

Noted about pin E. I brought the harness back inside to go over all the connections so I'll fix the dimmer now.
Thanks for the heads up.

Toxic Gecko

That was my problem for about a day and a half. I wish that was all that was wrong. Now it only blows hot air. I can change the mode, but no matter what settings I use, just hot air. Even when it is off I can still feel hot air coming through. And yes, I was in the car long enough, as a matter of fact I was half cooked after an hour and 15 min drive home.

Anybody else experience this?

abdullaRX8

Mine only blows hot air too! just recently the lights on my controls stopped working, but i can tell that they are working; however, now, it only blows hot air, it may be may a/c compressor though b/c it would go on and off before i even put the kit in.

rollerbldes

Just push the A/C button. Just because the LED is on does not meant the A/C compressor is on. You see the LED is frozen, so you have to guess if it is on or off. The button should still work though.

As far as hot air, our cars blow hot air if you do not turn the A/C on... Engine is hot you know.

To fix this try disconnecting negative on your battery and connecting it again after a few min. I know this is super super annoying to do but try it. Although it is temporary until it freezes again.

raphy3

well finally got everyhing in earlier on today. Drove around to test everything and make sure the nav works well, etc.
Wow the sound is so much better with this HU than my old audiolink thing.
Everything works except for one button on my steering wheel I didn't program correctly. So I can't skip forward but I can skip backwards (not very useful). I thought I had tested it and was working before I closed everything up. I think I'll wait until the next time I need to pull everything out of there before I fix that one button. Too much work, although that is the button I use the most.
The nav antenna gets great signal below the center dash piece (thanks rollerblades)... and the metra dash piece doesn't look that bad... lol. Need to clean it with some armorall.

So rollerblades, you're saying that if things start glitching out we can disconnect the negative battery terminal and it'll go back to normal?
Has anyone asked metra what to do about the glitches, i.e. are the covered under som kind of warranty?

firebirdude

iTrader: (3)

If you can prove that the glitch is an actually factory defect and not faulty installation, then it should be a lifetime warranty on Metra products.

I realize several people have had the issues. Just telling you that's what Metra is going to expect from you.

bureau13

OK, this is undoubtedly the stupidest question ever, and I've tried to search for an answer but have not found one. I really stopped paying attention to most of this until the Metra kit came out for aftermarket stereos. I thought the Axxess box was an iPod-to-stock stereo kit. I almost bought one, but all the heat complaints stopped me. Now with the Metra kit, the point is to NOT be stuck with the stock stereo...right? Given that most any aftermarket stereo out now worth anything has iPod interface functionality built in...why do you need the Axxess box?

jds

Toxic Gecko

The Axxess box that comes with the Metra kit is used to reconnect your HVAC, emergency flashers and digital readout as all of those are wired through the factory stereo.

Toxic Gecko

I understand the lights not working and I did push the A/C button, it really is not working. Like I said I had an hour and 15 min drive to try different settings. As far as the enging heat goes, it seemed to be a big difference from the usual.

DeViLbOi

iTrader: (1)

Toxie...I would pull apart your dash again and disconnect and reconnect all of the connections. Sounds like the HVAC stuff didn't get reattached properly.

J_Owens

anyone do the update using a mac? or know how to do it on a mac? i have having trouble doing it, i downloaded the firmware setup.exe, but when i double click on it it wants to open word, wtf, getting really frustrated, hate mac because i am so illiterate to it, so used to pc, anyone know how i can get it to work?

DeViLbOi

iTrader: (1)

Mac's can't run .exe programs...only Windows can. That would be why they tell you windows is required for the update.

raphy3

I see. Probably we'll have to get a whole bunch of people contacting metra all reporting the same problems. It looks like that won't be a problem, lol. If everyone goes out and pays $50 for the update cable, though, I hopemetra doesn't notice that and use it to their advantage.

I think a little earlier on this thread someone mentioned that metra knew there was a problem and was working on an update. Not 100% sure though. If that's true I have faith this will be resolved and they'll do the right thing by their customers. I'm just going to wait for the problem to show up, and when it does I'll be calling metra.
So nice to have a fat screen in the center of my dash now!

rollerbldes

-You can NOT run the update on a mac. Has to be PC!
-Toxic, check your connections.

PLEASE READ FOLLOWING:
Well ok I've been working with the engineer who designed the circuitry within the dashkit AXXESS box. So far an update is released 1.1, it solves most issues but introduced a new issue which isn't nearly as bad as the old issues. I'm sure metra will have a way of pushing out the update to everyone once all the issues get resolved.
^^^READ ABOVE!!!^^^

DeViLbOi

iTrader: (1)

They said something similar when I was working with them on the iPod adapter. Basically they have you ship it back to who you bought it from for a swap. But they are going to want the entire dash kit back to do it so they can update the box you sent back. It is stupid. What they need to do is come up with a jumper that you can just plugin to that circuit and turn your car on and update it.

raphy3

heh, duly noted

Toxic Gecko

I will check the connections again, maybe something came loose when I placed it all into the dash. It is kind of a tight fit to get it all back in there playing nice with all of the wires. On the other hand, I did disconnect the negative battery terminal for a few minutes and it all seems to be working fine for the moment, including the A/C. Weird.

rollerbldes

Hm.. weird.. Maybe it is software issue then.

Yeah I will ask the engineer next week for you guys. See how the update can be pushed out.

Maybe they can send you guys the cable with a paid return envelope. So you just send the cable back after your update.