So Fry's was to install a Pioneer f700bt.

All went smooth initially. Antenas under the grille on the dashboard.

Ipod control in the armrest.

Then they could not get the GMOS-04 to work. Thus, no Onstar or door chimes. Don't really NEED those, but feels half a**ed since I have them w/ my Bose system.

Except, after reading (A LOT) on the forum, I have told the installer I need to order the Peripheral GMAH24B & GMAHCM (which they do not sell).

Because of the total snafu, they have agreed to install those modules for free.

As I get ready to leave he warns me of an "alternator whine" or feedback. After hearing it on the way home, with music on, and top down it is more of a piercing squeel!

My question is, will the Peripherals clear up the ONSTAR and door chime issue, as well as this Squeel/Feedback?

Furthermore, the screen is barely legible in moderate daylight. Suggestions? I'm inches away from dumping the whole thing and getting nothing or trying the Kenwood.

Very anticlimactic experience....

 

Hmmmm where to start.

Go into your setting and see if they have the dimmer on. It might be putting your radio into dim mode making it think it is nite time. you should be able to turn it off or adjust it. along with setting the contrast to view it better.

the whining is due to a bad ground. I doubt they have it all installed correctly. That is the problem with some Big Box retailers. They have all the Computers thats tell them how to do it, But they dont have the experience. There are some added instructions that MAY be needed on some vetts, Did they follow those or just rip open the package and throw it in????

 

I believe you need to research about pioneers ground loop feedback problem. The ground for the pioneer deck is possibly what is introducing the alternator whine.

 

Thanks for the feedback...no pun intended.

The guys that worked on it, i would actually consider pretty smart. They budgeted 2 hours for the install and spent 8. They were thoroughly frustrated, and at a loss. I think the main problem was the GMOS-04.

After an evening of research I think the pioneer is going back, because screen brightness is an issue.

Now on top of the fact that the ipod connection does not work, its going back.

The upside of "big box" retailers, is they are usually very good about returns, especially when things did not go as planned, or did not work.

i think i am leaning towards a Kenwood DNX7120...we'll see.

 

with the assessment of the big boxers. Though unfortunately that can be true of ALL installers with our cars. They make huge leaps of logic like "well it's an '07 GM so it must be this...." and guess what, bad thinking there. Our cars are small production numbers and tend to hang on to the previous generation of data bus through the generation. The rest of the GM cars are on the GM Lan now, but Corvette is still serial data bus.

It does sound like they have the dimmer either setup wrong or wired wrong. There isn't an accessory power wire or illumination wire in the factory harness on our car and I bet that blew their minds. The power and illumination commands come with signals via the data bus, so you gotta work around these things.

The GMOS-04 can take care of the ACC power, but you have to add a relay to it, it doesn't come with it. These kids might not have added one, and now I'd keep a close eye on your battery. Does the radio turn off when you shut off the car?

For illumination you can tap a wire in either the hazard lights button or the TC/AH button, each of those have a +12V that switches on when the car goes into "night" mode from the sun sensor. Check the audio FAQ linked in my sig, there's a thread with the details of what wire should be used, you can give that to the installers.

Alternator whine is unfortunately very common when you keep any of the stock pieces plugged into the system. They should absolutely double-check the ground to make sure it's secure and solid, but they may also need to install ground loop isolators between the head unit and the GMOS-04 or GMAH24 if you have them install that instead. It's a common piece and they should have them handy.

Another thing to point out to them that they probably got wrong... ALL C6 Vettes have outboard amplifiers, even the Delco systems. They likely tied into the speaker wire outputs of the Pio when they would have gotten better results using the RCA outputs. So what's happening is the signal is being amplified by the head, knocked down to line level by the GMOS-04, then re-amplified by the factory amp... a recipe for inducing noise. If they use the RCA outputs there will be only a single amplification step and that should help as well.

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble, best of luck getting it all resolved!

 

i made a post on ur other thread regarding all of this, just demand full refund. order a kenwood from one of the vendors on the forum and get the peripheral stuff

 

Well, after a good nights sleep I decided to heck with the Pioneer. The only thing I like about it better than the Kenwood is the GUI. Very well thought out and designed.

Sunday morning i went back to Fry's and asked them to pull EVERYTHING out. I feel bad, as did they, to ask them to after all they had tried, but I wasn't putting up with it for another minute.

In fairness, they were very cool, and slipped me to the front of the line and pulled it all out in 40 minutes. Return was a breeze, and they took it all back without any difficulty.

Turns out Abt was selling the Kenwood 8120 for less than Fry's was selling the Kenwood 7120 for. After a few phone calls to confirm if they had the necessary Peripheral parts i made the trek up there.

Those guys rock. Sure they made their money, but got me right in, and got the whole thing up and running fast.

Plus they got the steering wheel controls (which Fry's said couldn't be done) in addition to the Sirius Sat, bluetooth, and ipod control (which is very fast). The icing on the cake, was I showed them my mild to wild NPP exhaust control and they wired that into one of the Kenwood relay controls. So now, i can manually open up my exhaust through the kenwood touch screen rather than through the silly remote.

Though i wasted a beautiful sunday at Abt, it all worked out. Thanks for the input.

 

thats very cool that the kenwood has relay controls! they are creeping into the car pc world!

congrats on your new install, how does it sound?