I have a 2007 HHR LS model and my radio has been intermittent so i decided it was time for a new one. i found a guy on fb marketplace selling a BNIB Pioneer speaker package complete with radio for $50, great deal. This is the model that came with the speaker package -mxt-s3266bt. The harness on that is the standard pioneer but without the orange wire. With the car being this old and alot of miles i mainly use it for a work car. so its just a beater with a heater at this point and im gonna run it until it dies so im really not worried about losing chimes or any of that and i didnt wanna pay the extra $50-$75 for the adapter harness. So this is where im at now. I have the yellow constant from the pioneer hooked up to the red/white in the harness, the black on black/white for the ground and ran a separate 12v switched wire down to the fusebox with a tap. i should have power but i still dont. i dont have the pink wire hooked up if that matters and i have an antennea adapter on the way because it was pretty cheap.The car starts and runs fine so the security didnt kick in. Is there anything else i needed to do to get power? ive done a bunch of installs before and ive never encountereds this problem before. a constant, switched and ground i thought was all i need to get power. Am i missing something here? ANy help would be greatly appriciated. Thank you

 

Stop. Test the old radio with good speakers. Or don’t bother. There’s probably nothing wrong with it. The problems you describe are almost always failed speakers and has already happened in more base-speaker cars than not. The base speakers were junk. 99.9% of the time, just replacing all 4 door speakers is the fix.

This has been covered ad nauseam in these forums. Do a search for much more info and speaker install hints. Also learn the futility of trying to replace a radio without the proper adaptor.

 

The pink wire is power for the antenna amplifier an the on signal for the sub woofer amp.
High likelihood the speakers died, not the radio.
Don't worry about the anti theft; it just disables a stock radio.
Did you verify 12 volts?
Did it come with installation manual? If not https://pioneercarentertainment.com/...ration-manual/

 

The speakers were working just fine when i removed it. Maybe i should of been more clear about the intermitent issue of the radio. Sometimes it would come on, sometimes it wouldnt. But everytime it came on the audio was fine. Ive checked both fuses that would have anything to do with the radio and they are fine. I dont have the premium audio package, and no steering wheel controls for the raido either. I plan on replacing the 4 speakers that came with the package when i get the stereo to work. But i have all the speakers wired up as well as the red/white to my yellow for 12v constant, the black/white to my black for ground and a fuse tap witht a 15amp fuse in it wired to the glovebox in a spare slot in the fuse compartment underneath the console on the passenger side. This is all it would take to get power on the radio in terms of hooking up to the cars factory harness correct?

 

I don't care about losing chimes. This car is 18 years old and beat. I'm installing it without the gmlan adapter. I don't have factory amp and sub either. I just need help on what power wires I need to get the radio to come on. I have currently

Red/White from factory harness going to yellow 12v constant to pioneer harness

Black/White from factory harness to black (ground) on the pioneer harness.

Pioneer harness 12v switched to spare fuse location using fuse tap and 15amp fuse.


Anything else I should have done I see pink wire is power antenna. Never in my 100's of installs over the years did the blue wire need to be hooked up to anything to have power coming into the radio. Is this needed to be hooked up to the pink wire for the radio to have power? What else am I missing here?

 

How are we supposed to know? That is what installation manuals are for, have you looked at it?
You are the expert, having done 100's of installs. Crutchfield dot com has lots of free help.

Since you brushed my first post off, I will ask again: did you verify 12 volts?
When you say "doesn't come on" do you mean the lights don't come on or there is no sound.
\What blue wire do you speak of? One is for the RR+ and one is for the steering wheel controls.
Are you sure the yellow wire is supposed to be constant 12 volts? That is an odd color for hot.
The white/black wire is 10 volt ref. for the steering wheel controls. Solid black is ground. The likely problem.

 

That the problem is intermittent does not prove it ain't the speakers. Of the 3 base speaker HHR's I've owned, I replaced failed speakers and all of them. The problem was always intermittent, with increasing frequency and declining sound quality, leading to complete failure.

I've dissected a few of these failed speakers, and they had fried voice coils near the soldered leads.