pumafeet10

I have a Pioneer Premier DEH-9600MP that is in my fiances car and it will not remember anything

Every time the car is shut off the stations, track, time all of it is gone. I had this headunit in my civic and everything worked great but now it is not

I know or at least I thought it had something to do with the memory and acc but am really unsure and don't want to have to buy a new headunit

All of the wires in the harness are properly soldered so im not sure if there would be a way to actually test to see what the problem might me.

Any insight would be appreciated

joeymc13

sounds like a voltage problem to the memory wire (yellow) on the back of the head unit. If Im remembering correctly, this wire has a black box in line, with a fuse in it on this particular model. Make sure the fuse inside of that black box attatched to the yellow wire is good. You can test and confirm by using a multi meter, unplug the radio, put your positve lead into the pin that connects to the yellow wire, and the negative lead to ground. with the car off, you should get around 12.6 volts to this wire.

Cobb2819

is the unit hard wired or wired through a harness?? make sure the yellow wire on the radio harness is wired to the car's constant wire and not differently. typically when this error occurs, the switched and constant lead to the radio are switched.

pumafeet10

one quick question, when using my multi meter where do i set it to scv, dcv, dca, or ohm and where in those sections should i set it to?

Thanks again for the help everyone

joeymc13

you need dcv, I don't know what the setting you have on your meter are, but if there is one for 20, I'd use that... thats what my meter at the shop has...

joeymc13

If this doesn't sound right for your meter, could you let me know what model your meter is?

Cobb2819

i would assume dcv probably 2-20v if you have one

Cobb2819

we need to stop replying the exact same thing at the same time dude

joeymc13

LOL... I know!!!

pumafeet10

i sadly only have a radioshack one but it does have dcv 500v - 2v so i think i should be good

Cobb2819

so i assume there is no plug?? just factory wiring?? just swap the red and yellow and you should be good

pumafeet10

it does have a jumper harness that connects the pioneer to the factory and i tested it and it did nothing, no voltage change, but im not sure i am doing wrong but i don't think i really could be but who knows.

I switched the fuse to a 20 amp that was the best i had and nothing changed, not sure what to do, maybe the aftermarket harness is bad?or even the pioneer one?

joeymc13

Oh man, lets not start putting higher rated fuses than what belongs there, that leads to pretty bad problems. Okay, so, your red lead was on the yellow wire, and the black lead was on the black wire? and you read 0v while in the dcv section of your meter? now lets test the red wire... put your red lead into that wire, and your black lead still with the black wire, and turn the key on. You sould go from 0v to 12v. If you don't, and nothing happens, you're prob not using your meter properly.

pumafeet10

i put the red lead on the yellow wire and the black on a ground source/ the black wire.

Yeah i know that the higher rated fuse would be bad for extended use but i just wanted to check if that might have been causing the problem.

got it will go check again, sorry apartment living makes this a little slow but i really appreciate the help

Thanks again, back in a few

pumafeet10

also should i strip the wire a little bit, i was just putting the lead into the pin on the harness plug?

joeymc13

If you don't feel like you're getting good contact with metal, then yeah, strip it some. I try to just probe my meter leads inside of the plastic harness and touch it to the metal pins if I can...

pumafeet10

yeah thats what i was doing and nothing was happening with any of the contact points, in all honesty my multi meter may just suck, but i probed every contact in the plug

pumafeet10

yeah not sure what is up but nothing is happening maybe time for a new multimeter with clips or something?

joeymc13

Idk what to say at this point. You've either got a malfunctioning meter, or its not set up properly. Has the thing ever worked right once you put it in your fiances car? was her previous radio working? Have you checked your fuses, particularly a fuse under the hood for your radio? You said you used an aftermarket stereo harness btwn the pioneer plug, and the car's plug, are the colors matched 100%? yellow to yellow, and red to red, unless your fiance drives a european car, in which some case like mercedes/landrover, the yellow and red needs to be switched (yellow to red, and red to yellow).

pumafeet10

the headunit has not worked right since i put in her car, a 03 Ford Focus, the factory unit worked fine but the screen went out.

I didn't get to check the under hood fuses yet but had before and all were good, i will check tomorrow to be certain.

Everything is completely matched, maybe one of the soldered connections is not good?

Also i had someone mention that to check if the multimeter is working properly to put red to positive and ground the other and if it reads anything it is working, but i guess we will see

joeymc13

Oh, that explains it... The focus is wired like a German car. Switch yellow and red, and u should be good to go.

pumafeet10

seriously? good lord i guess i will have to give it a try tomorrow, even a 03 focus?

joeymc13

Yeah, even the 2003... I double checked by looking up the wiring harness, and I was given the same harness that I use on VW's, Mercedes, and Landrovers as the correct harness for that car.

Actually, I dove into it a little deeper, there were two versions of the focus radio for 03/04. One version used standard ford harness, the other used the Euro harness.

pumafeet10

so how do i know which one it would be? oh man this stinks

joeymc13

Im pretty sure that if your colors match, and you have no memory, you've got the version in question. It won't hurt anything to swap the wires in order to try. Im only suggesting this bc we can't verify if we are using the meter properly. Literally, swapping the wires, won't hurt anything. If I was to swap the wires in a honda, the only symptom would be, well, not holding memory once the key has been cycled, as you've stated is you current problem anyway.