[Kieran White]

I know nothing when it comes to wiring so I'm just using the vehicle specific harness I ordered online.
all the cables seem to match up though...

Hmmm weird. Is the accessory wire and ground wired up correctly on both ends of the wiring harness. So is it wired correctly at the vehicle specific harness and the radio harness ? Accessory wire should be red and ground should be black.

 

[Kieran White]

I know nothing when it comes to wiring so I'm just using the vehicle specific harness I ordered online.
all the cables seem to match up though...

If I were you I'd double check that the Red(Positive) and the Black (negative) on the head unit are correctly wired up to the harness, Also have you wired up the Yellow 12v constant power wire that the above OG talks about?

 

[big jim]

I real long shot but are you not getting power when the stereo is ‘loose’ or not in its cage?

the only reason I ask is the Alpine halo9 I put in my wife’s Touareg (and murano before that) doesn’t power up until its touching the cage itself, (I.E earthing itself) never had a stereo do that before and it’s odd it does it in 2 different make of car but may be worth a look

Other than that have you got the red/yellow leads the right way round on the harness to allow it to switch and save its presets etc

final thought, a question to everyone this time, do you need some sort of canbus adapter on the later Minis, I had to add one to the Touareg as the OEM stereo wiring didn’t have a switch function, that adapter allows the stereo to turn on and off on the ignition as per the standard head unit, prior to fitting that I wired it to a spare fuse ‘hole’ but it meant it only came on with the engine running and went off instantly when the key was turned back to ‘ACC’ position

 

[Kieran White]

I real long shot but are you not getting power when the stereo is ‘loose’ or not in its cage?

the only reason I ask is the Alpine halo9 I put in my wife’s Touareg (and murano before that) doesn’t power up until its touching the cage itself, (I.E earthing itself) never had a stereo do that before and it’s odd it does it in 2 different make of car but may be worth a look

Other than that have you got the red/yellow leads the right way round on the harness to allow it to switch and save its presets etc

final thought, a question to everyone this time, do you need some sort of canbus adapter on the later Minis, I had to add one to the Touareg as the OEM stereo wiring didn’t have a switch function, that adapter allows the stereo to turn on and off on the ignition as per the standard head unit, prior to fitting that I wired it to a spare fuse ‘hole’ but it meant it only came on with the engine running and went off instantly when the key was turned back to ‘ACC’ position

Not that I know of. I've installed a cheap Chinese android unit in mines and it will turn on and off with the ACC wire (red wire) and it will use the Constant power wire (yellow wire) to put it into sleep mode when the ignition is turned off so that you don't need to wait for it to boot up everytime you get in the car, it'll just wake up. My stereo works fine without the engine on and the key in ACC so I don't see there being a problem. I bought my kit here o had a little issue with it not fitting properly so I had to cut away at the cage that holds the Speedo for the unit to fit but I think that's just because I was using a Chinese stereo as they have been renowned for not fitting correctly in double din kits I got my stereo here and it's brilliant works with steering wheel controls too! Here my before and after, excuse the mess and I know it's not quite fitting, need to do a bit of tweaking hahaha I just wanted it done the day I installed it planning on ripping it all out again to install a dab adapter and back up camera!

 

[Rossycoops]

im trying to install the above but with a 120 and not the 130, i have all the cables as said about but for some reason i can get power to the unit but i dont get any sound or a radio signal. Any ideas? Thanks

 

[RCOutlaw]

I would have thought it is pretty obvious from what you say assuming that is the full story.

Wiring loom/fuses are obviously OK if the original powers up.

That only leaves either how you are connecting the stereo or the stereo itself.

Sounds like red and yellow maybe connected together or crossed? Yellow to yellow live to battery? Red to red?

 

[Luke-18901]

I’m currently awaiting all the harnesses to arrive to start, am just wondering do I need a separate harness to enable steering wheel controls?

 

[thebassmasta]

Its a Mini/BMW thing. The stock head unit is designed to cope with a drop of power as the Mini cuts power to the headunit after a few minutes of turning off the ignition. Apparently something inherited from some BMW's. Most other cars dont do this so no need for a perm live however not the case with the 2nd gen. If I didnt do this it would lose the time etc everytime the power cut. Sort advice from a couple of audio specialists and this is what they recommended,

thats actually wrong, the Mini already has the permanant live, (the yellow wire) you need to bring in a switched live, which i found from the electric sunroof, connected that up to the red wire from the harness

 

[Kieran White]

thats actually wrong, the Mini already has the permanant live, (the yellow wire) you need to bring in a switched live, which i found from the electric sunroof, connected that up to the red wire from the harness

That's wrong. It's a constant live that you need to run from the battery to the head unit.

The R56 has ignition live not constant live so the stereo will not hold any memory unless you run a cable to the battery.

I did this on my R56 and it was the same as Tweedbeans. There's a reason why these kits come with the inline fuse for the constant live....

 

[thebassmasta]

That's wrong. It's a constant live that you need to run from the battery to the head unit.

The R56 has ignition live not constant live so the stereo will not hold any memory unless you run a cable to the battery.

I did this on my R56 and it was the same as Tweedbeans. There's a reason why these kits come with the inline fuse for the constant live....

AHHH Bummer, think you could be right there Kieran, come to the car to start putting everything back in radio hasnt stored memory, i take it the ignition feed goes off after a while????? this will mean i will have to manually turn off the unit when i turn the car off

 

[E-R53]

You shouldn't have to do that.

For as long as I have been meddling with cars the constant live powers the memory & limited other functions & the switched live will turn the stereo off when you turn the ignition off past the ACC position.

 

[Kieran White]

AHHH Bummer, think you could be right there Kieran, come to the car to start putting everything back in radio hasnt stored memory, i take it the ignition feed goes off after a while????? this will mean i will have to manually turn off the unit when i turn the car off

Yeah ignition live turns off not long after the ignition has been switched off.

I'm afraid turning the radio off before turning the car off might not fix the problem as most devices always have a little bit of power running to them so that the keep the time, date etc. I work in IT. Laptops and Phones are the same. Laptops and desktops have a little watch battery in them called a CMOS battery that's used to keep the date and time and motherboard settings.

Same principal goes for you cars stereo just this time it's the constant live wire that keeps the stereo powered so that it can hold the date time, memory and allows fastboot on Android head units. If I were you I would try to run a constant live wire to the head unit. I found that I could access the headunit in my now old R56 by only removing the fascia. I managed to gently get it out without needing to remove the Speedo so just something to keep in mind. All the best!

 

[Washcraft]

Not that I know of. I've installed a cheap Chinese android unit in mines and it will turn on and off with the ACC wire (red wire) and it will use the Constant power wire (yellow wire) to put it into sleep mode when the ignition is turned off so that you don't need to wait for it to boot up everytime you get in the car, it'll just wake up. My stereo works fine without the engine on and the key in ACC so I don't see there being a problem. I bought my kit here o had a little issue with it not fitting properly so I had to cut away at the cage that holds the Speedo for the unit to fit but I think that's just because I was using a Chinese stereo as they have been renowned for not fitting correctly in double din kits I got my stereo here and it's brilliant works with steering wheel controls too! Here my before and after, excuse the mess and I know it's not quite fitting, need to do a bit of tweaking hahaha I just wanted it done the day I installed it planning on ripping it all out again to install a dab adapter and back up camera! View attachment 100028 View attachment 100029

Did you loose the gong and pdc after this ?