Quote:
Originally Posted by jake12tech
Did you buy the metra wiring harness off amazon? It keeps the original harness in place. Also, the kenwood looks great.. They're the only type of radio I'll put in an MB besides Alpine. They look good, pioneers look they belong in a Honda!
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I bought the radio from Crutchfield and it came with a harness kit of sorts. It contained an adapter for the power plug and 4 speaker wire adapters, which are pretty useless if you're trying to retain the OEM wiring harness.
I did use the power plug adapter as intended, but pulled 4 new speaker wires and used the 4 speaker wire adapters to plug the original speaker spade plugs into. Wiring to the front speakers was pretty elementary. To get to the rears, I took off the passenger kick panel, door trim, passenger side seatbelt cover, and removed the rear seat so that I could lift the carpeting along the side and run the speaker wire in there. I eventually bundled it with the existing harness when it came up out of the carpet, so it seems like it belongs.
I didn't bother trying to reuse the OEM harness. The fader was toast and I suspect I had a wiring fault somewhere in the right rear speaker wiring. I never did get a conclusive continuity test out of it. Wasn't too bad, the whole job took me about 4 hours, and that included about an hour of fiddling with the rear seat mechanism to add rubber bushings to places and install springs in place of the rubber straps for the hinged cover over the rear seat back.
I had considered Alpine (which is my brand preference), but the expense for just a basic stereo that didn't look like it belonged in a Ricer was ridiculous. The Kenwood fit the bill and was cheap to boot. It does what I want and sounds reasonably good. I'm satisfied with it, and that's really what's important!