Car stereo help.

ryanm2, Jan 19, 5:41am
1998 VW Passat - have purchased the panasonic / iso adaptor and aerial adaptor and they are working fine, however, i dont have any constant power. Will this be a fuse issue or do these VW's have something special i haven't considered. Have tried my meter across yellow and red with no volts, even when radio on so i am scratching my head a little.

richard198, Jan 19, 5:46am
Your meter shouldn't be across yellow and red.
Set your meter to volts and bridge between earth (body metal) and red or yellow supply wires with stereo disconnected.
You should have established the correct wires for constant and switched before connecting head unit!

richard198, Jan 19, 5:47am
Do you have dash lights working!

ryanm2, Jan 19, 5:49am
ive tried both yellow and red to earth, not across yellow and red. Its an iso adaptor, there shoule be no need to establish any wiring, including speakers.The VW have a special thing with the key, you can turn car off but with key still in ignition you can power stereo, up / down windows etc , im wondering if that has anything to do with it.

richard198, Jan 19, 6:09am
The previous head unit worked okay!

And everything else in the car (including stereo) is working fine; just the memory not working!

ryanm2, Jan 19, 6:21am
yeah, the previous stereo was the factory Sony / VAG stereo. Ive checked all fuses, all ok, its just the memory on the new one. Im getting nothing on yellow / earth.

richard198, Jan 19, 6:24am
Reconnect the old one again just make sure nothing has changed first.

It's also a good opportunity to check your constant and switched supply is still there.(with the head unit out/disconnected)

ryanm2, Jan 19, 6:58am
sorted - firstly, the meter i was using needed replacement batteries, also, upon entering the country (im guessing) when they put a 14mhz band expander they did a bloody rough job and had actually broken open both switched and constant, reversing them in the process (they are the same colour), so i have reversed them back on the iso adaptor.thanks for your responses.

richard198, Jan 19, 7:16am
Well done! Someone swapped over identical colour coded wires!
It's a wonder the original stereo worked at all!