2007 Radio Install HELP!

I have been reading all of the articles on this site about radio installs on a 2007 & up sprinter. I am sooo confused. I have a sound 5 system with the 9 wire plug. I want to install a standard radio without using my buttons on the steering wheel. What adapter do I need? I don't want to chop up the harness in the truck if I don't have to. I see that this company sales something (http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_12921_Metra+Axxess+XSVI-1784.html) that I think might be the solution but the description is so vague i'm not sure. My goal is have a plug & play solution for my 2007 sprinter. The double DIN radio/nav unit I have purchased is a Pioneer Avic-700bt (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/Navigation/In-Dash/AVIC-F700BT) Please help me.

First of all Welcome to the forum.
I will try to help you since I have the same unit except mine is 900 model
First you need to buy a double din trim...$ 15 to $ 20
Second but also very important, shop around for a wire harness, you not gonna find anything for a Dodge Sprinter but you can opt for a VW Golf Rabbit or Jetta wire harness.
They will work with a minor adjustment...Plug and play ? Not really.
The real problem will be feeding the radio with continuos power...the original harness works differently.
On the left bottom corner above the pedal where the fuses are you should be able to find an ACC hot pin so you can bridge from there and feed the radio.
I hope I made it easy.

Good luck.

Mauro

I have the vw harness. I cant see that thing plugging into whats in my truck at all maybe when I get home to night I can take a picture of it & upload it. The harness I have seems to have a different pin offset than the one in my truck? (here is the dash kit & wiring harness I ordered http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...140165044%09&_sacat=See-All-Categories&_fvi=1) It seems the connector in the truck has 6 wires for speakers but the aftermarket harness radio & harness had 8. I seen some posts on this forum that address this issue vaguely. On this page (http://www.ourexcellentadventures.com/tag/sound-5/) I found this guy which seem to be a senior member of this website describe his install. But he pretty much said sound was coming out but he hadn't tested fade or balance. I think I may have all that I need in my possession to complete this task. I am just missing some information. again any help is much appreciated.

Make sure you do some reading about what is in the harness. There is a ground, a Positive feed wire that is hot all the time EXCEPT when the key is in the start position, 4 speaker wires, a wire to feed the antenna amplifier, and 2 CAN data wires that tell the OE radio whats going on.

I did not remove the factory harness, I opted to get pins that fit into it (Radio Shack etc.) and wrapped it up. I only used the factory harness for the front speakers, used the ground (to fool my Avic into thinking I'm parked so the GPS is useable on the move) and I fed the Antenna amp power wire.

Jon has some excellent stuff in the Database section on what wires are where in the plugs. I had that stuff printed off with me before I started anything.

I got it! Thanks for this site! I will use it frequently when I have questions about my truck.

boydsoftprez said:

But he pretty much said sound was coming out but he hadn't tested fade or balance.

Click to expand...

Balance works fine. There is no fade control, AFAIK, on the Sound 5. Anyway, I just have door and dash board speakers.

Regards,

Keith

kmessinger said:

Balance works fine. There is no fade control, AFAIK, on the Sound 5.

Regards,

Keith

Click to expand...

Hi. Can anyone advise if this is not the case please?

We are adding rear speakers to our Prisoner Transport build-up, and if there is no way to access a fader on the Sound 5 I guess we'll have to make the front speakers "left" and the rear area speakers "right". I know the bean-counters will not pay for a small external amp to solve the matter properly!

Many thanks,
Steve