Help figuring out why Premier FH-P800BT radio won't work
 

So my father in-law gave me this Premier FH-P800BT radio that used to be in his Honda Civic to me. He sold the Civic and had Best Buy remove the radio and put in a crappier one before he sold it. So he gave me the Premier FH-P800BT which is a double-din radio. I had no accessories with it at all, no wires or anything. I guess the idiot at Best Buy kept all that stuff.

So anyway I had to figure out what I would need to make this work in my car. I got a harness for it off ebay and all the usb cables and all that and the harness to connect it to the car. Did all the wiring, plugged it in, and nothing I do will make the power come on. It is as simple as can be. Black to ground, yellow and red to positive. I hooked it directly up to the car battery to make sure it wasn't some other wiring and it still doesn't do anything.

So anyway my father in-law took it back to the shop where he got it and they sent it in to be looked at and they sent it back saying it worked fine. Then the guy even said he hooked it up to the wires for one of their demo radios and it turned on. I was never there to witness this though. Then he sold me an overpriced $30 harness saying the ebay one might have been wrong. So I took that home and hooked it up and still nothing. I found a thing in the manual that says you can press a little reset button with a pin but that didn't make it come on.

So basically my question for you guys who know about this stuff is there any secret you need to do to the radio to make it work? I don't know if these have some kind of security feature that shuts it down or something. Before you ask yes the fuse in the radio is good, not blown. Any ideas you can give me would help. I'm about to throw this thing off a bridge.

I actually have an xA not a tC but seeing as the xA forum is dead and the tC one is busy I posted it here. Shouldn't even be car specific anyway.

Did you get a factory integration harness or did you cut off the old one? make sure you are using the factory harness. Also I know this might sound weird but make sure the antenna is plugged in. If the ground in the factory harness isn't good enough the antenna acts as a backup ground. Of course you don't want to use it as your only ground and I would always recommend creating a new grounding point for an aftermarket head unit rather than the one off the factory harness.

I have the conversion harness, I did not hack anything off. I attempted to take a wire and hook one end to the negative on the battery and the other to the metal casing of the radio to see if it was also a bad ground but still nothing. I think I may have touched it to the inside of the antenna plug hole but maybe I have to touch it all the way into the area where the probe end sticks in for that to actually work?

Yeah make sure it is all the way in. If it works at that point then you know it is a grounding issue.

Supposing that did make the radio work what sort of ground could I hook up to fix it since it should work without an antenna right?

Look around inside the dash where the stereo goes for any screws you might be able to use, back them out and then attach the ground to them. This may take some trial and error to find the right one. Also if there is any paint where the screw is scrape it off to provide a good contact surface. If you have a multimeter it is a good idea to turn the car on and use the voltage meter to test any possible areas for positive voltage. If you see any then you don't want to use it as it can cause a ground loop. If all else fails find a piece of metal back there that has nothing on the other side and use a self tapping screw.

take the yellow and red twist them together and put on car battery, place black wire on ground of battery, does it come on? if it doesent the radio is toast

He said he did it and still nothing but the unit was tested as working.

then if he did all that and the fuse is fine the radio is dead, on pioneers even when they need a reset something still always lights up, BTW the reset is usually under the face on on the cover of it

bench testing on a car battery eliminates everything on the car and only leaves the radio, if the harness is plugged in all the way and the fuse is good it should work

Says he hit the reset as well. But the unit was tested as working after trying to connect it to the battery...

Took it back to the radio shop who sold me the harness. Talked to some other guys there and told them before they said it worked when hooked in to their "wall" of stereos so why not compare the two harnesses and see if they are different. Of course they were. The guy sold me the exact same harness I had before (that was also wrong). A guy at the shop even said "I told Chris that was the wrong harness" but still they sold it to me. What morons. So they actually gave me the Pioneer harness off their floor model and I hooked it up and it worked. So dumb that Pioneer doesn't give the pinout diagram on the unit or in the booklet. My brother said Alpine does that. If I had that info 3 months ago I would have had this working in 10 minutes.

Thanks for all the help guys. Sometimes the most obvious problem is the answer.