Good afternoon folks! New jeep owner, but experienced technician. I recently bought my first jeep (2017 unlimited sport). Love the jeep and what it has to offer, but fighting previous owners radio install (Pioneer Avh-120bt). When I first purchased the jeep, the head unit didn’t play at all, but lit up and seemed to halfway function with touch screen inputs. I pulled the aftermarket radio out and found everything spliced with butt connectors and electrical tape. I was able to get it all secured and soldered/heat shrinked in the appropriate manner. Programmed bus box and got all steering wheel buttons functioning correctly. Purchased the antenna adapter and got am/fm working properly. My issue now is the left soundbar speaker and tweeter are non functioning. I can adjust fade and balance and everything up front works on both left and right, but only the right speaker and tweeter in the soundbar are operational. I removed left panel and speaker, double checked connections and found no issue. Is there a connector anywhere that links the left and right sides? This is a base system, without an amp. I have swapped speakers from left and right, and both speakers work on the right side, but not the left.

 

Welcome to JK Forum. You know it would be a good diagnostic if you could get a OEM factory base radio ( an audio store might have a take out you could grab) and checked to ensure that the Pioneer wasn't damaged by the O.E. installation. I have read that there are companies that do have the wiring diagrams you can purchase and download; it might be All Data..

 

I actually have the factory radio, the previous owner left it in the backseat. I guess I could swap it out and see if the sound comes back. I was just hoping there was a connector or something that was left unplugged that may have been a simple fix. It’s not too difficult to pull the dash back apart and plug it in, just more than I wanted to do after getting it all back together and soldering countless wires for the aftermarket adapter harness. I have access to harness diagrams through work, but I’ve never ran into an issue with any decent aftermarket adapter harnesses, I guess there’s a first time for everything.

 

Yes it is some work to get the radio out; but the results will be very informative.. Hope the OEM works so it identifies it isn't wiring; just the OE botched install.

 

**Issue Resolved**

So, following advice, I installed the factory radio and found sound from all speakers. Deductive reasoning led me to the conclusion that either the radio (Pioneer AVH-120BT (manufactured 2/2024)) or the adapter harness was at fault. So I removed the adapter harness and checked continuity (+ and -) from left rear speaker. I found the positive pin on both ends had little to no resistance (good). When checking the negative wire, I had an open. I removed my heat shrink and checked the soldered connection on both sides of the grn/blk and found no resistance (good). So, being the curious fellow I am, I untaped the Metra harness and found my issue…the grn/blk negative speaker wire went from one vehicle connector to the other…and not to the radio. Weird. So, I soldered a wire from the vehicle side connector to the pioneer connector and problem was solved.

A picture is worth a thousand words. The circled connector is the connector used in my setup. The green w/black tracer ran from one gray connector to the other gray connector, but did not tie back into the loose wires that are soldered to the aftermarket radio pigtail.

 

Awesome, thanks for updating the forum on your findings and success.