Hi! I hope someone can help me as this is driving me crazy!

I've had a Fiat Bravo 2001 for some time and two days ago i bought a new Sony stereo to replace the stock one. After discovering Halfords couldn't fit it until January 31st i decided to go ahead and try and do it myself.

All seemed to work fine until i turned it off and it lost all the settings.

in the leads in the back there are a yellow and red plug and a double yellow socket and a red socket, the continuous and ignition power things... currently it only works when the red and yellow plugs are in the double yellow socket. When the red socket is in the red plug and the yellow socket in the yellow plug, the engine makes the stereo whir but the head unit refuses to come on.

what on earth have i done wrong? has something blown do you think? I should say when i got it all out to look at again this evening something sparked quite heavily. oh god, what have i done :-( :-(

Connect red to yellow. That should do it.

fitting stereos are easy - they only seem hard because of the ammount of wires -think of them as a house stereo - u have the plug wires then the speaker wires

on a stereo - locate the red black and yellow

red is the live black the earth and the yellow is the ignition - apply this to the same on the new stereo
on some aftermarkets there isnt always a yellow to yellow - yellow basically joins the red when the ignition key turns so just bridge the two - as above - join the yellow to red

then all you gotta do is mess about finding wich speaker wire goes with wich speaker - theyre usually all colour coded anyway so long as you get the neg and pos wires for the same speaker its just a matter of figuring wich wires match the ones on the new head unit - sounds a lot more complicated than it is :yum:

Hi guys,
thanks for your help - the red is currently connected to the yellow. The stereo comes on with the ignition and goes off with the ignition and then loses all its settings.

I've tried
red to red, yellow to yellow (this causes the "drive" to whir when the engine goes on but the stereo never lights up and won't turn on)
red & yellow to yellow (this works as described above)
red to yellow and yellow to red (this does nothing)

Interestingly, the old fiat radio had a weird blue, green and yellow block going into it which doesn't have anywhere to go on the new stereo.

Is it possible some sort of fuse went when there was a massive spark as i was taking the stereo out to have a look tonight?

argh, why didn't i just wait until the 31st for professionals to fit it!

if there is deffinately power going to the unit i would say its more a problem with the head unit - the red black and the yellow wire is all that is neeeded to get power to it - as you notice a whirring that would sudgest power is present - with regards to the firework display that happened - check all the connections - most headunits are supplied with a fuse wich should blow if you short the circuit somewhere - sounds like you had a live somewhere hit the earthed chasis as you slotted it back in

is there another vheicle you can try the headunit on? - but to be honest if there is power in the machine but no display or anything ist sounds like youve got the wiring correct and have a problem with the headunit itself -

if its a new unit send it back and get a replacement if not - it may mean a new one is on the cards

have a look on the back of the headunit though - there should be a small fuse - like a car fuse slightly smaller - it COULD be that this has blown - but again check all your wiring - make sure its all covered properley because it deffinately sounds like there is a live bare and causing trouble in there

It Works! Swish. Thank you for your help 97brava. It was a fuse problem. In the car though, the fuse which controls the central locking & stereo power had blown. New fuse and now the stereo beeps when i turn the engine off and remembers the time etc.

Thanks for your responses!

Dave