illadef

i'm hoping someone can shed some light here. i've just bought a brand new Scion (T1814) unit and had it installed. everything works fine so far, it powers up, plays music, etc. but when i turn on the headlights, the entire deck goes black.
no light what so ever, but it's still operational as far as the sound goes. music still comes out, but i can't see any display or lights. any insight would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advanced.

afterlifespecialist

this might sound stupid, but have you checked your dash lights? I hate driving at night with dash lights and love that I have the ability to turn off my dash lights completely with the xb...which includes all lights on the stereo as well. Just an idea. If it's not that, then maybe whoever installed the stereo didn't connect the dimmer switch wire? I'm just throwing things out there.

Slody4Futbol

yeah check your dimmer switch to the left of the sterring wheel, rotate it up and down and see if the lights change on the radio

illadef

yea, the dimmer switch works fine. i guess maybe that wire then? would that be the only wire that would effect the headunit this way? how about the illumination wire?

afterlifespecialist

Yeah it could be any of those, i'm not totally sure as i have yet to take my headunit out and mess around with anything behind it. Did you get it installed by the dealer or a local shop? Either way, they should warranty their work and correct the problem, IF it is in fact an installation issue. If it's a hardware issue then you would have to talk to whomever sold you the head unit. I assume the sound still works? What about the buttons, are they illuminated? I looked at mine tonight and even though i had the stereo off, the buttons still glowed, unless i turned the dimmer switch down.

illadef

yea, no glowing whatsoever. with or without the lights on. the only thing that changes, like i said before, is that when i turn the lights on the display goes black. i tried doing some research for people with similar problems and found something on the matrix message board talking about rewiring that needed to be done:

http://matrixowners.com/lofiversion/...hp/t58785.html

any thoughts?

afterlifespecialist

Is your car a scion? After checking out the link you provided, it sounds like others are having similar issues with non-scion cars & installing the scion stereo in them. If you're car is a scion, then it sounds like whoever installed it, didn't do it correctly. It sounds like maybe they didn't using a wiring harness and just spliced the wires in. If this is the case, I'd def take it back to them to fix it at their cost for not doing things the right way. If its something you installed, then you'll probably need to get things straightened out by taking it to someone who does stereo installs.

falcon115

I know this is an old thread but maybe someone searching for the same issue will come across this solution. I had the same issue trying to bench test the newest 2011 Scion head unit. I bought the aftermarket wiring harness and crimped the red, yellow and orange together and connected to 12v, then the black to ground. Worked fine on the older Scion unit T1808 and my stock Toyota unit but not the T1814. Knew the unit worked because everything lit up when plugged into my Toyota 4Runner wiring harness. After much searching on the internet finally discovered that you need to connect the other orange cable (on the secondary smaller connector for speakers) to ground. Then all the lights came on correctly. Incidently if I did not apply 12 to the orange wire on the larger connector, the display would come on but all illumination would disappear as soon as 12V was applied (simulating turning on the lights in the vehicle). I needed to solve this because I am about to test changing the 29 surface mount LEDS from amber to green to match my 4Runner illumination and wanted to be able to test as I went along without having to keep connecting it in the vehicle wiring. Hope that helps someone with the same issue.

yupinmytC

When the stereo is on you need to switch the headlight all the way on. Then in the settings under display the option will pop up for day mode, switch it off and the radio display will stay lit. When the headlights are off the option disappears from the settings.