Thread: Replacing 2000 Suburban factory radio

Originally Posted by alkeeholick

Man you guys make this more complicated then it should. I have a 2000 suburban and all I did was get the $20 harnest. Before you un plugged the factory harnest just get a light tester and see what is hot (remote wire) when its on and what turns off when its off. I found one pink wire and a orange wire. Just cut those and wrap them with your blue remote wire and your all good. Now.............

Can someone tell me where my dam factory amp is so I can bypass it!!!! the channels for the left side dont work so I need to wire straight through it. THANKS!!

In the 2002 that I have, the factory amp in behind the glove box.

To drop the glove box (in mine) find the small retaining tab that holds it at it's open position. Figure out how to release the tab, the glove box will self empty into the footwell at this point At least it did for me. I would recommend removing the contents before doing this.

If your amp is not in this location, not sure what to tell you....

Originally Posted by alkeeholick

Man you guys make this more complicated then it should. I have a 2000 suburban and all I did was get the $20 harnest. Before you un plugged the factory harnest just get a light tester and see what is hot (remote wire) when its on and what turns off when its off. I found one pink wire and a orange wire. Just cut those and wrap them with your blue remote wire and your all good. Now.............

Can someone tell me where my dam factory amp is so I can bypass it!!!! the channels for the left side dont work so I need to wire straight through it. THANKS!!

What, are you retarded or something? I already said that I had done it that way and it worked. If you don't have the rear passenger control option in yours, it's as simple as wiring it in with the harness.

Anyway, yeah the amp is behind the glove box.

Wow, this topic has been all over the place.

I just want to verify something before I cut anymore wires because there's been some conflicting posts. This is my 4x4 and we're in the middle of ANOTHER blizzard, so I want to work on it while I'm snowed in, but not have a lot of down time because I snipped the wrong wire. I need the car even if I just use the old radio.

Mine is a 2001 Suburban. It has OnStar, but obviously it doesn't work anymore anyway and I never paid for it, so I don't care about it. As far as I can tell, it is a "Performance Enhanced" sound system, but it's not Bose. I think it's just got upgraded speakers. It's pretty hard to get a straight answer even from the RPO codes. I don't THINK it's got an amplifier. I don't know how I'd know and frankly, I don't care about it. I'd just as soon bypass it. I do NOT have rear speaker controls (other than the standard balance/fade on the radio).

Anyway, the factory stereo does have two harnesses. The "standard" harness and a second one (smaller and REALLY short, so it's hard to work with). I've used the Scosche harness for the standard GM wires, so up to this point I haven't cut anything.

When I plugged in the new Pioneer Premier, everything lit up and worked except I had no audio from anywhere. So, I went back to the factory stereo. I noticed that I still had no audio until I plugged in the second little short harness, so I know I need to somehow bypass that. I keep hearing about a bypass harness to just skip OnStar and the factory amp, but I can't find one.

If I'm reading this correct, I just need to snip the pink wire on the second harness and wire it into the blue/white remote wire coming from the Pioneer. So, I'd have two wires, one from each harness, going to the one blue wire.

That bypasses the OnStar and amp, and just gives me the stereo I bought with all 8 speakers? Correct? This has been tested?

That makes it seem pretty simple, but there are like hundreds of posts around the web from "it can't be done" to ripping out all the old and replacing all the wiring.

Thanks for your patience with me. I'm slow and cautious before I start cutting wires I can't reach to repair.

Originally Posted by fogghorn

Wow, this topic has been all over the place.

I just want to verify something before I cut anymore wires because there's been some conflicting posts. This is my 4x4 and we're in the middle of ANOTHER blizzard, so I want to work on it while I'm snowed in, but not have a lot of down time because I snipped the wrong wire. I need the car even if I just use the old radio.

Mine is a 2001 Suburban. It has OnStar, but obviously it doesn't work anymore anyway and I never paid for it, so I don't care about it. As far as I can tell, it is a "Performance Enhanced" sound system, but it's not Bose. I think it's just got upgraded speakers. It's pretty hard to get a straight answer even from the RPO codes. I don't THINK it's got an amplifier. I don't know how I'd know and frankly, I don't care about it. I'd just as soon bypass it. I do NOT have rear speaker controls (other than the standard balance/fade on the radio).

Anyway, the factory stereo does have two harnesses. The "standard" harness and a second one (smaller and REALLY short, so it's hard to work with). I've used the Scosche harness for the standard GM wires, so up to this point I haven't cut anything.

When I plugged in the new Pioneer Premier, everything lit up and worked except I had no audio from anywhere. So, I went back to the factory stereo. I noticed that I still had no audio until I plugged in the second little short harness, so I know I need to somehow bypass that. I keep hearing about a bypass harness to just skip OnStar and the factory amp, but I can't find one.

If I'm reading this correct, I just need to snip the pink wire on the second harness and wire it into the blue/white remote wire coming from the Pioneer. So, I'd have two wires, one from each harness, going to the one blue wire.

That bypasses the OnStar and amp, and just gives me the stereo I bought with all 8 speakers? Correct? This has been tested?

That makes it seem pretty simple, but there are like hundreds of posts around the web from "it can't be done" to ripping out all the old and replacing all the wiring.

Thanks for your patience with me. I'm slow and cautious before I start cutting wires I can't reach to repair.

It's usually not a good idea to cut wires you can't reach to repair. If you can't reach them to repair them, you probably can't reach them to reconnect them. If you get some piggyback splice connectors like these:



You won't have to cut anything.

Anyway, you're correct, jump the pink wire over to the acc/ant wire on your head unit. Your vehicle DOES have an amp. It's behind the glove box. If you have a rear-passesnger stereo control panel, you'll have to bypass the wires going into the control unit, and wire them straight into the wires coming out of it. There are two sets of wires, I believe they're two black, and two green wires (can't remember offhand), just use a paper clip or something to jump sets of wires until you hear sound from the correct speakers, then cut them and solder them directly together (or use a splice connector).

The front speakers should work fine with just the pink wire, but the rears probably won't without the afore-mentioned bypass of the rear-controls. Unless, of course, you don't have rear controls in the first place...

You are a genius and a gentleman. One pinch and it's working great!
So much better than the total re-wires, adapters, PACs, etc that I've been hearing. Pink on #2 plug to the blue remote on the new head unit. PERFECTION!

Thank you SOOOO much.

No problem, that's what the forum is here for.

I installed an aftermarket reciever and I don't hear any sound I checked all the wiring and the fuses. Now I'm thinking that its not connected to the factory amp. I need to know where the factory amp is located and which wires to connect to my new radio.

Originally Posted by Duvallon

I installed an aftermarket reciever and I don't hear any sound I checked all the wiring and the fuses. Now I'm thinking that its not connected to the factory amp. I need to know where the factory amp is located and which wires to connect to my new radio.

Look behind the glovebox, that is where mine is (2002)

I still need to know which wires i connect to the remote wire