Looks like a bunch of us bought this at the same time. What a nightmare.
Crutchfield, although trying like troopers, cannot get it to work, and is suggesting return and reinstall factory HU. This is after four hours on the phone with their tech support and a large dismantling of goodly portions of my car. I was told it was plug-n-play when I bought it.
Problem is no sound from subwoofers. Issue is that the factory HU was a two channel, while amp is a 4 (or six) channel. Appears that DaimlerChrysler jury-rigged the set-up by splitting the two channel just before the amp and running one side to a separate amp channel to power the rear speakers. Some have apparently fixed this on this forum, but they are speaking Greek to me. Solution appears to be to run rear speaker wires from the D558BT HU to the amp inputs on the channel addressing the rear speakers and disconnect factory splice from this channel on the amp.
Having written what I just wrote, I have no idea what that really means. I don't know where to hook the speaker wires to the amp. I don't know which wires on the harness (Metra) from Crutchfield represent the rear speakers from the HU, and apparently there are not enough volts thrown from the RCA connectors to power up the switch on the amp. Again, I don't really know what I am saying.
Can anyone tell me how to make this head unit work with an 'place tab A into slot A' description. I can run wire. I can attach wire. I can splice wire. I cannot, however, even tell you what a pre-amp is let alone which channel is run by what part of any amp.
Am I also right in assuming that those who described a plug and play situation were dealing with base models or simply never noticed that their rear speakers quit working?
Thanks for any help.

 

What wiring harness did you get? To plug into the factory plug to splice into the Kenwood harness?

 

Have both the Metra 70-1786 (w/RCA connectors) and the Metra 70-1784 (w/o RCA connectors). Crutchfield sent the 1784 on the idea that the 1786 RCA connectors did not throw enough juice to kick on the amp for the rear speakers. Not the problem. Sound out of front speakers seems louder and clearer with the 1784. 1784 also appears to be identical to the Scoche discussed elsewhere on this forum.

Absent a fix under the first question, current plan is to simply buy RCA connect speaker wires, plug into the rear speaker connector on the back of the D558BT, and run directly to speakers while skipping amp. Should let the fader work and round out the sound, although I'll lose any thumping (which does not drive me anyway), and a lose a little more gross sound level over the stock HU.

 

Dude wire it straight to the amp...problem solved. You will get total control over front/rear..left /right ....or sub power. The radio has a built in crossover. I love mine, no issues at all.

 

 

What is this diagram of. wiring harness off the cd player?

 

For the Amp

 

Read thru this post...https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...-channels.html

 

"Wire straight to the amp" was one of the things I was hoping to do. Not all of us had a car audio class, and for most of us, cars did not even have amps (head units did, and you never saw them) when we became car people. That's why I was looking for a 'tab into slot' explanation, and all of the posts seem to fall one step short on the instructions.

I have come up with two possibilities. These assume either 1) directly wiring the 55 peak watt amp from the head unit to the speakers using the HU amp for the rears and bypassing the amp, or 2) using the RCA pre-amp connects through the amp. For the following assume that the speaker wires from the HU amp include a violet and a green positive and the same colors with a black stripe in negative. For wiring through the amp, the RCAs split out to the same colors. Here's what I've pieced together, but in the interest of check twice and fix once, I don't want to try either until someone confirms that I am not insane. Moreover, I cannot fathom many car things worse than hacking into a fifty wire harness and cutting wires that only God knows their purpose.

Finally, the information used is largely from the Crossfire factory manual, relevant portion attached.

First Option:

Using the RCAs plugged into the HU having split them to a green+ and gr/bk -, and a violet (v) + and v/bk -,
1. Cut yellow wire @ amp pin 10A;
2. Splice in v from HU to cut yl on amp side;
3. Cut y/v wire @ pin 9A;
4. Splice in v/bk from HU to amp side of y/v wire;
5. Cutcut b blue (bl) at pin 8A;
6. Splice in gr from HU at pin 8A amp side;
7. Cut Bl/br wire at pin 3A;
8. Splice in gr/bk wire at pin 3A on amp side; and
9. Cap off now exposed wires.

Second Option:
1. Cut pink wire from pin 6B;
2. Splice in gr from HU to pk at speaker side;
3. Cut dgr wire from pin 16B;
4. Splice in gr/blk from HU on speaker side;
5. Cut bl/rd wire from amp pin 5B;
6. Splice in v wire from HU to bl/rd wire on speaker side;
7. Cut bk/yl wire from pin 15B;
8. Splice in v/bk wire from HU to bk/yl wire on speaker side;
9. Cap off open wires.

You will note that the attached schematics show two multi-plugs on the amp, and A and a B. The two options are to 1) tap in with the RCA connects to the rear speakers before the amp; or 2) take the amp out of the equation, and tap in before the speakers and after the amp. You will note that per the attached schematic, there are not two sets of +/- going to the speakers, and it seems that the split for the two voice coils occurs somewhere up channel.

Will either, both or neither of these work? Do I sever the rear speaker supply voltage (pin 12B and 14B) if I do option 2, and if so, what of the speaker ground at pins 12B and 4B?

Thanks for any help.

Bob.

 

That diagram fails to show that wires 3 and 4 on the speaker connector is for the second voice coil and not power and ground.

 

Right out of the Chrysler service manual, and not the least surprised. So no way to splice in after the amp?