Ok first off, im a complete car audio noob. I'm planning on getting a new deck soon and have a forester din pocket on the way. I've decided to install this myself to avoid best buy's installment fee. I've been searching around the forum and just want to confirm my understanding going about this.

Will I only need the Subaru wiring harness and do a straight plug-and-play? And do I need this antenna-to-radio adapter(or the radio-to-antenna)? Any extra advice is appreciated.

 

- Once you get the Subaru wiring harness, it will be a straight plug and play. 6 screws (if i remember correctly) will get your stock unit out and hold your new one in place.

- Dont pry too hard on the plastic trim, it will scratch or break if you pry too hard.

- remember to plug your antenna wire into your new head unit

- head unit goes on top, din pocket goes on the bottom (i've tried puting the headunit on the bottom, but the dash trim got in the way of the fold down faceplate..)

One suggestion:

If you plan on running an amp and sub in the future take the extra time (5minutes) to wire your remote wire, and your rca wires to the back of the head unit while you have the unit out. run the cables nicely out the bottom of the dash and under the door sills and tape them off until you are ready to install your amp. Then you wont have to take your head unit out again when you decide to add on to your system.

good luck

 

i'd suggest you stop by a local circuit city store to see if they haveyour harness, because they're closing the stores, radio acc. are 80% off last time i checked.
you'll need subaru wiring harness, metra brand model: 808901 or 708901.
then you'll have your aftermarket wiring harness that came with the stereo. you simply wire them up color to color, if you get 808901, it'll have a white universal plug, unless you have the aftermarket universal connector, you wont need this part so you can cut it off.

 

alright, thanks for the replies. hopefully everything will go smoothly once i get my deck at the end of this week.

 

disconnect your battery before doing it.

 

oh yeah, i forgot about that. haha ill keep that in mind. thanks

 

Hey guys, so i just attempted to install my new alpine cda-9884 head unit today and everything works, except i can't get the bezel back on. The reason for this is because i noticed the alpine head unit was a little wider than the stock head unit, so it doesn't fit through the bezel. So as of now i have the new head unit screwed in placed because i forced it there. Can anyone help me out? Is there any modifications i'll have to make to either the head unit or bezel to make everything fit?? I assumed everything would fit in place..but i guess not? My center console is naked so PLEASE help.

 

Bump from my itouch

 

Everything on a deck install should be straight forward. Is there a tab that you need to break on the mounting bracket or something? Or maybe you bought the wrong mounting bracket for your car?

 

No, I used the stock mounting brackets..anyhow I messed around with the head unit just now and took off the plastic frame surrounding the faceplate and surprisingly the bezel fits now..all I have to do now is figure a way to mount the forester din and relocate my iPod cable.

 

i believe you may of use the wrong holes on the stereo while your mounting on the orginal bracket

 

I'll double check..I think there was only one hole on each side of the head unit to screw the bracket on tho

 

Majority of the time if your using the stock brackets then the radio trim is never used. Trim is usually used when using the aftermarket's cage, so don't feel like you did something wrong. And for any DIY person attempting to install a new radio unit buy the Circuit City harness because it's a straight plug n play harness unlike others which use pig tail harness.