95 rivi stereo connection questions

went out and bought a scosche (Sp?) wiring harness for my friends 95 rivi and the rear speakers do not work.

Only two connections from the car will fit into the main white connector(scosche) that splices into the back of the aftermarket radio, the main black connector from the car, that has the wires for power, etc, and a smaller 4 pin connector.

There is another connection that will not fit into the large white connector.

On the large white connector from the radio, the rear speaker wiring does not mate up to anything on the large black connector on the car side, the 4 pin connector fits on the other side of the large white connector and does not mate up to the rear speaker wiring.

Do the rear speakers have their own connector in the car wiring? Or are the two other connectors other than the main for the steering wheel controls?

If this is confusing I will go take photos, but to summarize the rear speaker wiring doesnt mate up to anything on the harness. Anyone else have this problem? This is the correct harness for the car, the 96-99 rivi harness isnt even close to fitting. Will try to re wire the harness but will probably just hard wire the 4 rear speaker wires in.

Did it have a Bose system? Some of the high end systems had their own separate amps and stuff, that could be interfering. That's all I can suggest, otherwise the wires are the wires... Some pics would definitely help.

no bose, just the concert 2 system

I will have pics up by midday

Sorry about the cell image, I am not at his house at the moment so this spare junk harness will have to do.

The bottom of this harness (both sides on the bottom) where the orange blue yellow red and gray will connect to the main black harness on the car. The purple and green wires are for the rear speakers on the radio and have nothing to connect to on the car wiring. Another connector from the car will connect to the upper left side of this harness but there is nothing there to connect to as seen in the photo. None of the harnesses from the car will connect to the rear speaker wires.

hope this explains better

blue connector is hvac

large black connector is for radio

small black connector is for radio controls

small white connector doesnt appear to do anything even when connected to factory radio. Will connect to aftermarket harness, but has no wires mated to it.

Rear speakers do not work even with the factory radio installed. Have swapped speakers, have checked all fuses...

Run an ohmeter on the wires, see if they make it all the way front to back. Maybe you'll discover a bad connector somewhere...

tried that as well.

Figured someone on here mightve had a similar problem. But it doesnt matter anymore, got fed up and ran new wire from the radio to the speakers.

Well if this is still a problem in a few days I will be able to help you out. Im picking up a radio for our Rivi here Teusday and will probably install it over the weekend. Im probably tossing in new speakers all the way around also...

Well Ive already ran new wire to the speakers, im sure the other guy really didnt undertand what i was talking about.

Let me know if the connector you get will have anything connecting the rear speakers on the aftermarket harness to the car harness.

thanks

The other guy? You mean me? I was just wondering if you tested the wires. You said you tested them, so I don't see how there is a problem, assuming they tested good, which you didn't say. I was trying to steer you in the right direction. You ran new wires, which would have been the suggestion if the wires were bad. If the wires were good, and the speakers didn't work, then the wires weren't really good...

deekster_caddy wrote:

The other guy? You mean me? I was just wondering if you tested the wires. You said you tested them, so I don't see how there is a problem, assuming they tested good, which you didn't say. I was trying to steer you in the right direction. You ran new wires, which would have been the suggestion if the wires were bad. If the wires were good, and the speakers didn't work, then the wires weren't really good...

the aftermarket harness did not mate up the rear speaker wires to any connector, hence the pictures...asked if someone else ever had that problem...was unsure which connectors were what...

how does a voltmeter help with wires not matching on the harness? Of course it wouldve helped if the wires mated up and possibly completed a circuit that would have tested "good" and gave the rear speakers power.

As to why the rear speakers didnt work with the factory headunit I do not know. If they had tested good, why would I have ran new wires? Kinda why I wanted to know which connectors in the dash were for what and why the aftermarket harness didnt line up correctly.

thats not the right direction, no need for attitude. just mentioned that you didnt understand...which you did not.

Quote :

If the wires were good, and the speakers didn't work, then the wires weren't really good...

???

You can always use a 9V battery to check the wires. Best bet is to look at the actual speakers an write down what colors what and locate that colors at the dash. Take the 9V battery and put that on the speaker to make sure that IS the correct wires and to aide in which wire is positive and which is negative.

colors at speakers did not correspond to colors at the dash, good idea though.

I was wondering if you used a continuity tester end to end on the rear speaker wires, that's all. Just trying to help. Sorry it came out with an attitude, didn't mean it that way. GM changed stereo harnesses in the '94-'95 area. My '96 G30 Van had the same harness as my '94 Regal, but the '98 Riv had a different harness. Don't know what the '95 Riv's had but most stereo catalogues I have seen have trouble figuring out what a Riv is in the first place

its cool, sorry for being on the defensive.

I've had more trouble working on that rivi than I have any other gm product. Its like the whole 95 model year shouldnt have existed. Irritating as hell. Thank god for genisys from otc, should have picked one up years ago.

My sister's Escort had the same problem when I installed a new cd player into her car. The rear speakers worked with the factory stereo, and I hooked the new harness up exactly as it said to (I don't think there were any wires left over that weren't used either). I ended up just running new speaker wires. It kinda sucked though, because the only speaker wire I had was 10 gauge, so I wasted a lot of expensive wire for stock speakers and a cheap head unit . My dad's wire strippers couldn't handle the wire. They broke when I went to cut, lol.

we still wonder how much it wouldve cost if we had let the shop do the "free install" when we bought the radio, lol

It cost me $30 for the "free install" on my fiero when I already had the old stereo out. All they had to do was sauder the wires in, and they didn't even hook the dimmer up to the headlights or anything :/