Stock HU and Steering Wheel Controls

[VRXblack]

Hi All

Looking for some guidance on what to do next.
So recently bought a new head unit and just having a few issues with the SWC. I decided to upgrade to the same make (kenwood) cause i like the way they work and have all the existing ISO cables etc.

Anyways, installed it all and all is working fine. When i tried to set up the SWC this is where I'm having some issues. None of the buttons works at the moment (not a major issue as i can just use the head unit ones more of just an annoyance). So anyways pretty much tried everything i could think of and remembered that i had run into these issues a while back with my previous kenwood HU and at one point needed to put the stock head unit and fascia to get it to "reset". So got around to doing it this afternoon but now with my stock head unit they don't work either.
I don't think my controls are busted as they were working prior to the upgrade so I'm at a loss right now i don't know where to go from here.

Anyone have any idea on what to do next? Any ideas on how to reset the buttons to at least work with the stock head unit? Im sure if i can do that I can get them to work. I did think of unplugged the battery for about 15mins in the chance that might reset things but didn't work...

Cheers

[bumblebee]

What cables have you used to connect the Kenwood to the stock wiring?
From memory I used a converter box dudad from aeropro and was about $300 and I plugged the Kenwood steering control cable into it and haven't looked back as that was about 3 years ago now

[VRXblack]

What cables have you used to connect the Kenwood to the stock wiring?
From memory I used a converter box dudad from aeropro and was about $300 and I plugged the Kenwood steering control cable into it and haven't looked back as that was about 3 years ago now

Thanks for the reply bumblebee
So the kenwoods have an included cable where 1 goes to the cars remote live wire blue/grey and 1 goes to the cars remote ground black/grey, from memory i think its wires 3 and 4 on the factory harness. The only difference between the 2 is that the new one has the wires hard wired into the unit and the older one has a separate cable that plugs into the unit via a 3.5mm cable. But its pretty much the same
I don't think my car needed any sort of converter box cause i never had a rockford system or MMC or anything like that. My original head unit was as basic as they come. Kenwood have this page which is what i followed (https://www.kenwood.com/au/car/visual_navigation/oem/)
Decided to swap out the new one with the previous HU and as i expected that doesn't work, but im just more confused why my mitsi stock head unit installed the steering wheel controls don't work either... Could I have stuffed up my steering wheel controls? Is there any way to reset controls? Could resetting the ECU fix the issue? I thought unplugging the battery for 15 odd mins should do it but do i need to do it for longer? Not quite sure what to do now...

[bumblebee]

Have a look thru here

https://aerpro.com/vehicles/mitsubishi/ ... 3-cj-sedan

I think the cable I bought was the CHMB2C

Plug the steering control cable from the Kenwood into that black box and off you go

In the Kenwood settings there is a page to configure the HU to the steering control, press a setting on the HU and then press the button on the steering wheel.

[VRXblack]

Have a look thru here

https://aerpro.com/vehicles/mitsubishi/ ... 3-cj-sedan

I think the cable I bought was the CHMB2C

Plug the steering control cable from the Kenwood into that black box and off you go

In the Kenwood settings there is a page to configure the HU to the steering control, press a setting on the HU and then press the button on the steering wheel.

Cool thanks for that, I swear i was only just looking at that adapter trying to figure out if thats the one i actually need haha
Ill have a look into it.

Cheers

[bumblebee]

The small black adaptor has a small plug that the Kenwood adaptor plugs into , from memory it has about 10 or so pins on it

I have no doubt it will do the trick for you

They are a bit $$$
However
Thankfully you only need one

Keep us posted

[VRXblack]

The small black adaptor has a small plug that the Kenwood adaptor plugs into , from memory it has about 10 or so pins on it

I have no doubt it will do the trick for you

They are a bit $$$
However
Thankfully you only need one

Keep us posted

Yeah thanks for that.
The only thing i was thinking about was if the controls currently don't work with my kenwood or with stock head unit then this adapter wont really fix anything though will it?
I think im going to first determine if the controls are actually working, borrowing a multimeter from a mate and gonna check if the car harness is actually working and getting some sort of feed back from the buttons. I figure if i can make sure that works first then i can probably look at moving forward with that cable.
Yeah is a little pricey but you are right you only need the 1. I'm also guessing i need one that goes from that little black adapter to the kenwood headunit? Can i just get those from supercheap?

[bumblebee]

The cable you needs should have been in the box with the Kenwood that connects the HU to the little black box

[adamhumphrey]

I know the wire you are talking about in relation to the Kenwood stereo allowing you to make use of the steering wheel controls without another box. You have to also setup each individual button and pair it. I had a unit similar in my wife's car but not having the car anymore I cant even go and have a look at the settings. There may also be a high/low impedance for the controls also. I didn't use this way to hook up the controls as the car had a rockford amp so I went the Aerpro controller and wired directly without the plug and play connectors (In my opinion they look ugly and take up to much space.) Your on the right track to test the steering wheel controls and actually see if they are working first.

[VRXblack]

I know the wire you are talking about in relation to the Kenwood stereo allowing you to make use of the steering wheel controls without another box. You have to also setup each individual button and pair it. I had a unit similar in my wife's car but not having the car anymore I cant even go and have a look at the settings. There may also be a high/low impedance for the controls also. I didn't use this way to hook up the controls as the car had a rockford amp so I went the Aerpro controller and wired directly without the plug and play connectors (In my opinion they look ugly and take up to much space.) Your on the right track to test the steering wheel controls and actually see if they are working first.

Yeah those 2 little wires haha. Yeah i know what you mean for the settings, have tried to go through all them again but nothing was working. Ended up resetting those settings as well just in case but still nothing is working. Its just so weird for them to stop working altogether. I feel like somewhere my car has just gone nope im not gonna work and stop.

Also had a quick word with a techy from Mitsubishi yesterday, he said the same thing best to check that there is some sort of signal coming through, so goal this weekend is to pull it apart and check that it actually works. At least if i know i have done that i have a better idea on where to go from there. The tech also said could have a faulty control unit (unlikely but possible). But this will be a good test to see if there is an issue with SWC unit or not. At least if i know that the controls are working then it must be the little control wire that came with the Kenwood deck.
He even went on to say that the ECU may be throwing some sort of error but without plugging into their diagnostics its hard to tell. I did try my ODB adapter with Torque and ran an ECU scan but no errors from that, unless the dealers have something that can dive into the ECU deeper.

Cheers for the reply much appreciated.

[bumblebee]

Who cares how ugly the plug looks
There's tons of space behind the dash to hide it all

Not.like it's hanging from the mirror or anything to see it all

[adamhumphrey]

Who cares how ugly the plug looks
There's tons of space behind the dash to hide it all

Not.like it's hanging from the mirror or anything to see it all

Well when I learnt to install car stereos and car alarms almost 20 years ago at a car sound place it was how I was taught to do it, There may be a large amount of space in the lancer behind there to fit all of it but that is beside the point. If you install amps, reverse cameras etc it all requires space in there and I like neat installs. Yet again another less than helpful comment from you. Seriously if you haven't got something positive to say really don't say it. Last time I checked forums like this one are full of helpful opinions and people attempting to help but there is always a few people on them like yourself that continues to bash people for their opinions. Like everything people are not always correct not even you. Maybe you should take that on board sometime.

[adamhumphrey]

I know the wire you are talking about in relation to the Kenwood stereo allowing you to make use of the steering wheel controls without another box. You have to also setup each individual button and pair it. I had a unit similar in my wife's car but not having the car anymore I cant even go and have a look at the settings. There may also be a high/low impedance for the controls also. I didn't use this way to hook up the controls as the car had a rockford amp so I went the Aerpro controller and wired directly without the plug and play connectors (In my opinion they look ugly and take up to much space.) Your on the right track to test the steering wheel controls and actually see if they are working first.

Yeah those 2 little wires haha. Yeah i know what you mean for the settings, have tried to go through all them again but nothing was working. Ended up resetting those settings as well just in case but still nothing is working. Its just so weird for them to stop working altogether. I feel like somewhere my car has just gone nope im not gonna work and stop.

Also had a quick word with a techy from Mitsubishi yesterday, he said the same thing best to check that there is some sort of signal coming through, so goal this weekend is to pull it apart and check that it actually works. At least if i know i have done that i have a better idea on where to go from there. The tech also said could have a faulty control unit (unlikely but possible). But this will be a good test to see if there is an issue with SWC unit or not. At least if i know that the controls are working then it must be the little control wire that came with the Kenwood deck.
He even went on to say that the ECU may be throwing some sort of error but without plugging into their diagnostics its hard to tell. I did try my ODB adapter with Torque and ran an ECU scan but no errors from that, unless the dealers have something that can dive into the ECU deeper.

Cheers for the reply much appreciated.

I know this might be a long shot but are the steering wheel controls actually connected under the buttons on the steering wheel? I was going to ask did the steering wheel controls work with the car before you messed with anything? Also I'm not 100% sure if the steering wheel controls need to be triggered by can bus. I was only led to believe that the rockford amp was can bus. If it works via canbus then you wont be able to hook up the two wire setup from the Kenwood DVD player. It does seem strange that the stock head unit wont enable the steering wheel controls.

[bumblebee]

I have plenty of helpful comments and posts
Perhaps you should take a look around sometime

[VRXblack]

I know the wire you are talking about in relation to the Kenwood stereo allowing you to make use of the steering wheel controls without another box. You have to also setup each individual button and pair it. I had a unit similar in my wife's car but not having the car anymore I cant even go and have a look at the settings. There may also be a high/low impedance for the controls also. I didn't use this way to hook up the controls as the car had a rockford amp so I went the Aerpro controller and wired directly without the plug and play connectors (In my opinion they look ugly and take up to much space.) Your on the right track to test the steering wheel controls and actually see if they are working first.

Yeah those 2 little wires haha. Yeah i know what you mean for the settings, have tried to go through all them again but nothing was working. Ended up resetting those settings as well just in case but still nothing is working. Its just so weird for them to stop working altogether. I feel like somewhere my car has just gone nope im not gonna work and stop.

Also had a quick word with a techy from Mitsubishi yesterday, he said the same thing best to check that there is some sort of signal coming through, so goal this weekend is to pull it apart and check that it actually works. At least if i know i have done that i have a better idea on where to go from there. The tech also said could have a faulty control unit (unlikely but possible). But this will be a good test to see if there is an issue with SWC unit or not. At least if i know that the controls are working then it must be the little control wire that came with the Kenwood deck.
He even went on to say that the ECU may be throwing some sort of error but without plugging into their diagnostics its hard to tell. I did try my ODB adapter with Torque and ran an ECU scan but no errors from that, unless the dealers have something that can dive into the ECU deeper.

Cheers for the reply much appreciated.

I know this might be a long shot but are the steering wheel controls actually connected under the buttons on the steering wheel? I was going to ask did the steering wheel controls work with the car before you messed with anything? Also I'm not 100% sure if the steering wheel controls need to be triggered by can bus. I was only led to believe that the rockford amp was can bus. If it works via canbus then you wont be able to hook up the two wire setup from the Kenwood DVD player. It does seem strange that the stock head unit wont enable the steering wheel controls.

Yeah everything worked well very rarely the volume up would go down but only needed jump into the settings and reassign and was back to normal. Once i installed the new headunit that's when i had issues. My car never had the upgraded stereo, I think the person that had it before me for everything upgraded except the stereo so mine was as basic as it came thats why i decided to upgrade. Thats why i never bothered with the other ISO harness and all that as i never needed it. I ended up with the basic Mitsubishi to ISO, tapped into the 2 SWC cables and that was it.
Before installing the first kenwood deck did my research and even talked with Mitsubishi and told me the 2 wires i needed for the SWC's. Also confirmed this with Kenwood support, they flicked me the website where they give you the instructions on which wires you need to tap into to retain the factory buttons to like 20 different cars and the Mitbubishi one is wires 3 and 4 which are the Blue/grey and black/grey.
So did that along with a mate when i first installed the Kenwood and worked ever since.

Anyways i ended up taking it out again yesterday to check with a multimeter that i borrowed and was not able to get any sort of signal when pressing the buttons. I think i may have pin pointed what the issue is, i think i might have screwed up the SWC which will explain why they dont work with my stock head unit either. At least now i have a better idea on what the issue is. I just dont know now if the actual SWC buttons are the issue or the factory harness, but i think this might be one for Mitsubishi to tell me as i don't have the expertise to investigate any further and i dont have a spare SWC module to check.

Was thinking about trying to find an other SWC module to swap out but cant really tell how they come off, then again the buttons might be completely fine. I feel 4 holes on the back of the steering wheel and was able to look into 1 of them and saw a hex type screw. But again im not sure which ones would be for the controls.
Anyone happen to know what the Part Number is for the controls? Wouldnt mind trying to find some pics to see how they screw in etc.

I think i might just have to book the car in to be 100% sure. I reckon with all the stuff i have done and presented to Mitsubishi shouldn't take them too long to tell me exactly what the problem is.

Thanks for your help and input mate much appreciated!