Hardtop Wiring Harness Install??
 

Hey guys,

Well, I bought a hardtop from a fellow military guy, gave me a great deal on my hardtop. But, now I need to have the wiring installed for the hardtop so the sprayer/wiper works.

I talked to the dealership today and they said it'd take them 3 & 1/2 hours to install. To me that seems excessive...and would end up costing me alot of labor hours. So, I have two questions.

1. Does anyone know how hard it is to install myself? Or is it such a pain that I should just pay what they want? And if I should install it myself, is there a writeup or can someone give me a description of how?

2. Should I order the wiring harness off of Quadratec or through the dealership? Quadratec quotes $149.99 + shipping. I'm afraid I didn't get a price for the wiring harness alone from the dealership.

Well the list price for the dealer is $147 and you won't have to pay shipping there, so I'd try that route. Most dealers will give at least 10% off accessories, so you'd end up saving even more money.

I haven't installed one of these kits on a JK, but on my old 98 TJ it took me about 3 hours to do it. One caveat in looking at the instructions is that the wiper and defroster require StarScan activation, so even if you install it yourself, you will have to spend some time at the dealership getting it activated.

Takes about 3 hours. You can do it. No problem.

I did mine this summer myself with little problem. Took maybe a couple of hours but that included time out to shoot baskets with my 4yr old. The instructions that come with the kit are fine provided you can deal with 20 pages of drawings showing the step by step.

My only concern is that I've not actually gotten to test out my install yet. My hard top will go on once I get the Woods kit and then I'll make a trip to the deal for reprogramming.

Thanks for the replies guys!

Would you guys say the best route is to order through the dealer, install myself, then pay for them to flash the computer?

Would that be the best thing to do?

Based on the input from the guys who have said it's pretty easy to do, I would say run all the wiring and switches yourself, then have the dealer flash it. I did my UConnect kit this way and only ended up out of pocket for a half hour labor.

I did mine myself. It was fairly simple, the only road block I ran into was getting to the torx screw through the bottom of the steering column. I did not have a torx bit with a base small enough to fit up through the column. Quick trip to sears fixed that. I still need to go have the flash done, probably next week.

I checked out online for the best possible price for the harness and took the lowest one I could find to my dealership parts dept and they matched the price - seems to always work for me. I did my own harness install - my background is in electrical manufacturing - so I felt pretty comfortable performing the installation myself. I guess what I am saying is that it all depends on your experience and comfort level. You have to take apart the steering column to replace the wiper stalk, remove the instrument cluster to pin to the cluster connector, change out the environmental panel, and also need to wire to the fuse box in the engine bay. After the installation is complete you need to take it to the dealership to have it flashed. I did mine in conjunction with a Recall, which required a flash, so it didn't cost me anything. Just take your time with the install and read the instructions carefully. Have fun!

great info
 

Hopefully all the info here will help me. I will probably just get the harness and do it myself minus the flash.

That's what I'm about to do today... providing the weather cooperates