So I posted this in the Accord forum but realized I should probably have put it here instead...


99 Accord EX // Kenwood KDC-BT752HD

I recently bought a 99 Accord that came with some Clarion HU that I couldn't stand looking at much less actually using (stupid button layout, prefer volume **** over volume buttons, etc). I immediately went out and bought the Kenwood HU. Love it, awesome features and it looks great. Everything works as it should except I have no dash/hvac illumination. I've had the car for such a short period of time and didn't do any night driving, so I'm not sure if it worked when the Clarion was installed or not.

What I have noticed is that the vehicle wiring harness has an orange and orange/white set of wires labeled dash illumination and dimmer, respectively. The wiring connector that came with the Kenwood HU has no orange wires at all. When I touch the orange(dash illumination) wire to red(ignition) or yellow(battery) the dash/hvac lights up but does not respond to turning the headlights on/off, they just stay lit 100% of the time. Furthermore, when I turn the dimmer **** while the wires are touching, the lights do nothing but stay full brightness (this may be obvious). When I touch the orange/white(dimmer) wire to red or yellow, the lights behind the odometer and clock turn off and my parking lights turn on.

I called Kenwood and they told me to **** off and pay somebody to install it for me. Their excuse was that they don't provide vehicle support, only support for their products. I explained to him that I could touch the orange wires to achieve some results and that it just seemed the Kenwood lacked the appropriate wire connections: he maintained his "**** off" stance. I will link to some pictures of what I'm dealing with.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Since everything works; all HU functions, speakers, turn lights, hvac controls, etc, I've decided if I just can't figure it out I could live without illumination. However, night driving without it might cause me to incur an excess of speeding tickets given my inordinately heavy right foot.

Thanks in advance!


Kenwood Wiring guide:

Honda Wiring guide:

 

Apparently my tail lights do not come on either, so this has been upgraded to a mandatory fix now. I don't need cops pulling me over for not having tail lights.

I admit to be being completely ignorant about cars, but I'm pretty handy with fixing things having been a PC tech for over 10 years. It really just seems like the head unit is missing the connection my car needs. Perhaps my Honda has an older wiring configuration that is obsolete nowadays, and the new Kenwood reflects that newer reality? Rawr. So confused.

Any information would be greatly appreciated..

 

Please tell me you aren't hacking up the harness to wire this.

 

Not sure what you mean by that. I was using the old wiring harness from the POS Clarion, waiting to have everything set up properly before using the harness that came free with my Kenwood purchase. After continuing investigation, it appears that I missed a fuse in my earlier troubleshooting. From what I can gather, the entirety of my problem was in fact that caused by that fuse. After replacing it I have regained tail light functionality, however it appears I probably ended up breaking something else at some point along the process. Applying 12v to the orange wire no longer induces illumination. So at this point I've kind of just given up for now assuming I potentially killed the MCU. Complete assumption on my part but I've gotten frustrated dealing with this and now I'm at least legal again.