Civic EG

Just finish installing my deck but noticed that it wont turn on unless i turn my running lights on, i checked the wires over and over, so please any ideas and tips will help. thanks guys

Anybody ?

its gotta be your wires - in your case the dimmer turns on your lights. check if you did not mess up the red and red/black wires in the harness. common mistake. if not then its your deck

haha this happens to alot of people.
pull out your radio and re-check the wiring
something could be bare and shorting out and such.
just double check.

sucks to be me right now ! been going at it for two days now, but THANKS guys for the inputs, will try again.

okay, when you have your radio out, touch the red and yellow wires together when everything is plugged in the way it should.

just twist them together from the cars harness and twist the aftermarket radio harness ones together too. and turn your lights on.

that how i ended up figuring it out on one of my civics that the stock harness had been cut out of. i ended up running a new 12v line fused form the battery.

99cx wrote:okay, when you have your radio out, touch the red and yellow wires together when everything is plugged in the way it should.

just twist them together from the cars harness and twist the aftermarket radio harness ones together too. and turn your lights on.

that how i ended up figuring it out on one of my civics that the stock harness had been cut out of. i ended up running a new 12v line fused form the battery.

Oh god no no no... makes retching sound. Please no. If you wire it this way, the radio will always be on and you'll have to turn it off manually instead of with the key. Also, you never connect wires in a car by simply twisting them together. Even with tape. The vibration and movement in the car will make you pay for it eventually.

If your white/blue constant wire doesn't have power, it's the 7.5A ECU backup fuse under the hood. You need to replace this because it's your ECU's memory.

Red/black on the car harness is your parking lights. This should not be connected to anything on your radio. Not orange, not red, not yellow, nothing. Some people think you match the aftermarket harness colors to factory colors, which is WRONG.

Another possibility is you don't have ground and it's back feeding ground through the parking light circuit when you have the lights on.

Here are the wire colors.

Constant 12V+ White/Blue
Switched 12V+ Yellow/Red
Ground Black
Illumination Red/Black DON'T USE
Dimmer n/a
Antenna Driver's Pillar
Left Front (+) Blue/Green
Left Front (-) Gray/Black
Right Front (+) Red/Green
Right Front (-) Brown/Black
Left Rear (+) Blue/Yellow
Left Rear (-) Gray/White
Right Rear (+) Red/Yellow
Right Rear (-) Brown/White

Thanks for all the help guys, but for sure there was a fuse blown under the hood 7.5A Will take your advise (suspendedhactch) in the wires set up.
Thanks again for all your help !!
will post the results !