Hello, new to me 09 HHR with Pioneer system. Previous owner had a aftermarket head unit installed with the full kit but rear speakers or sub did not work. He also had ran new wire to the front door speakers and had rigged those up. Was a bad hack job.

I contacted the seller after a while and he advised that the factory amp was supposedly non functional. This would answer my questions as to why new wiring was present as to bypass the failed amp.

But can I source a OEM amp and install it in place? I saw some verbiage on eBay that suggested that these are “component protected” and may require programming same as the stock radios do when swapped. Wondering if anyone has replaced their amp and if a new one can be installed in place. Thank you.

 

Update: it had not failed and I assume the harness was OK. I took it to a pro audio place and got the full functionality restored with the aftermarket HU including steering wheel controls which was nice. I had seen in other threads that using the factory amp with aftermarket radios was not advised but it actually sounds quite good and loud in my opinion. My only other reference being a Yukon Denali with factory Bose.

 

Thanks for the update information, it’ll help someone in the future!

 

Not sure why anyone would say using the factory amp with an aftermarket stereo would be a bad idea.As long as you add the proper adapters so you can still get warnings and chimes and the use of the steering wheel controls (if thats important to you).It is still just an amp.For anyone else who may come across this thread if your factory amp does fail it would be much less work to add an aftermarket amp then to try and replace the factory installed one as it requires the removal of a lot of panels to gain access to it.

 

In fact, it should be plug and play, just remember the pink "radio on" wire that turns the amp on. It also powers the antenna amp, it can be used with automatic antennas.
The OE radios are identical with or without the amp. The amp uses the radio as a pre amp; the speaker outputs are also low level audio outputs. If you pull the OE amp out you have to rewire the speakers since they are connected to the amp instead of the head unit.