I got home yesterday at 9p.m. lastnight and saw my AVIC sitting in my living room. I damn near shat myself. So after eatting and convincing my wife that I need to go work on my ride I was out in the drive way by 9:45. I got doen with all by 11:45 except for the reverse wire and running the GPS antenna. Those are my questions. Where is the easiest place to find the reverse wire ( can you get it in the driver's kick), what color is the reverse wire, where do u guys have you're GPS antennas mounted, and will having the parking brake (lt. green) wire hooked to ground make the unit think the car is parked all the time and not let all of the features of the navi or vehicle dynamics work since it thinks you are parked?

Sorry for the long post and any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

I have this unit installed in my xB, but can only answer a few of your questions.

1. I installed the GPS antenna under the dash, on top of the unit. There is very little metal in the dash, and this worked fine.

2. Grounding the PB sense wire will not affect the Gyro functions at all.

3. The reverse sense wire is not important unless you are going to use a backup camera.

I installed the AV Input jacks in the side of the square cup on the passenger dash area.

 

won't the reverse wire need to be hooked up for the GPS as well so it will know when you are actually just backing up and not driving that way. I remember hooking up an older alpine navigation unit and having to wire in a reverse wire for this purpose (I think).

 

Whether backing up or going forward, the GPS system just sees this as movement. It's job is to tell where you are, not whether you got there using forward or reverse gears.

I had my system installed by a shop that had access to the schematics of the xB via computer. I do not have a hard copy of the data though.

I also have the same system in my Mini Cooper. I put the GPS antenna on the little pad on the right side of my dash. It does get a little better/faster signal than the xB under dash setup.

 

I have an Eclipse AVN 2454, but I used the camry navigation install guide. The VSS was a purple wire with white stripe and the reverse was a red wire with black stripe, if I remember correctly.

Here are the wiring codes for the xB:
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20742

That might help a little. If your GPS antenna is really small, you can stick it on the top part of the dash behind the plastic vent... basically behind where the speedometer and the odometer is. I just used 3M mounting tape on the back and stuck it there. I get a good GPS signal, so I'm happy.

 

your speedo functions won't work until a little while after you start driving your car... to make sure it's the right connection, just go to the settings and they have a connection status, it should pulse numbers if hooked up correctly...

 

Thanks for the responses I already got everything hooked up and I love this unit. I have not even begun to mess with all the navi features but what I have seen so far is awesome.

 

I got one more quick question. Is there anyway to back up the DVD-ROM navi discs that come with the unit. I don't want to end up scratching the discs too much and would prefer using a back-up copy. I have both DVD+R and DVD-R discs but will it even work and I am assuming I would burn it as a DVD-ROM not DVD-Video.

 

You are correct sir. :D Most of the newer units can read DVD-R and some of them can read DVD+R. I made a DVD image file of my wife's Camry Navi Disk with Alcohol120% onto a DVD-R and that's all I use now, the original is tucked away with all the other DVD software.

Also I'm not sure if you still need the information on the REV wire but yes it is Red/Black wire and you can get to it from the drivers kick panel. You need to hook up the reverse so that your system can keep track on which direction is the front of your vehicle even when you throw it in reverse. Otherwise when you throw it in reverse you'll just confuse the hell out of it and it'll think your driving forward in the opposite direction when you're really going in reverse. Anyway, that's what I experienced with the Camry Nav the AVIC might be different.

And just in case you haven't noticed, you might have to power the antenna amplifier (blue wire I think) as well otherwise your radio reception will suck a$$ as I've discovered and then I just tapped it into the ACC (gray wire). These should be on the 10 pin connector plug. Other than than, enjoy your new toy. I know I did when I installed mine.

 

where'd you get your unit from and for how much?

 

i wanna know too!

 

what is the easiest way to get to the VSS wire. I am having a difficult time finding it. Since there is so many wires there.

 

2 ways:

1) Get on your back and slide into the drivers foot pedal area and start looking at the plugs on the back of the fuse box there. There is a white cover which you will have to get out of the way before accessing the Purple/White stripe VSS wire.

2) Look at the speedo harness and it too has a purple/white stripe VSS wire that you can tap there.

I personally used the first method and it was pretty easy to get to as it's easily visible when you remove the white cover backing of the fuse box. You might have to just fumble with the wires a little but it's there.

I think it's in my tech, check out my sig for the link. If not I'll see if I can get you some pics.

 

I work at Circuit City and we got a special employee accomodation price on it, sorry guys .

I installed a cruise control on my xB earlier and had to hook up the VSS wire then so this time around it was real easy to find. I can scan a pic of the Install Manual from the cruise and it gives a diagram of the VSS wire location.