I suggested an adaptor because of my experience installing radios, sound systems, in cars and trucks over my 50 plus years in the car industry. Also the sites many threads about people hooking up a radio in the cut and splice method, which 9 times out of 10 offered poor results.
I’m sure you have the skills to wire it up anyway you want, but you did log into the site, you did ask a question, and I offered my version of a solution. If it’s not what you wanted to see , then that’s fine.
The HHR will tell you it doesn’t like it’s wires cut , it’s BCM will reject your intrusion into its .
At least I can sleep at night knowing I gave you good advice.

 

Which is exactly why I was trying to access the color codes here as others have done. Where can I find those updated color codes for the 09? Thanks

 

By scrolling back 2 posts.

 

Thank you for the help. I have the radio hooked up only to find that the problem I thought I was solving is still present. It seems that there must be an issue with the amplifier, which I didn't know existed in my car...the factory radio would only work intermittently, and in between times the volume was nearly non-existent. With the new radio hooked up it does the same thing and it gives an error code for the sub woofer test. Again, I was not aware of a subwoofer with the factory system. Take me back to the earlier days... This whole setup is different because of the electronics involved than before and I see that I need a special adapter for the antenna to hook up too. What happened to standardization?

 

Computers and LAN technology, I recall all you needed was 12 volts power and a good clean ground location , The speakers where an easy connection.
Now the chimes and .5 volt signals to the BCM for the turn signal sounds a separate signal to the amplifier, that’s why the adapter is necessary.

 

What sub woofer test? Is there a "Pioneer" label on the rear quarter trim? The usual problem that you describe is faulty speakers, they are a very frequent failure point.

 

Agree with donbrew, at least 90% of HHR audio problems presented on this site, that are like you are describing, are faulty speakers.

 

But would it be intermittent? It worked fine for the 3 days before I pulled the factory radio and would it be all the speakers at once? That doesn't seem logical to me. It's like listening to a record player without an amplifier hooked up to it. Maybe y'all are too young for that analogy...LOL How about listening to head phones with them 5 feet away from you?

 

I'll be 69 next week. Yes to all your questions. This is the 21st century, get used to it.

 

Been there, done that. If you replace the radio, get the correct adaptor, if for no other reason that you can add value by assuring the next buyer that they can just plug the original radio back in if they want to.

I've received great advice about audio on these forums. Both of my LS's with base radio/speakers had door speaker failures, one by one, intermittently at first, them complete. And exactly as I expected from the experience voices here, the little high-frequency "presence" tweeters in the A pillars kept working, giving a tiny, tinny, distant sound.

Almost any POS aftermarket speakers will be better than the base OEM's. I got lucky and found 2 pairs of not terrible $40/pair 6" speakers on closeout at $20/pair.

I'm not convinced that the feeble base radio didn't contribute to the demise of the stock speakers though - inadequate power and/or too-skinny wires and/or poor connections will trash speakers (clipping), especially cheepies, according to my limited understanding of these matters. Anyway, I retrofitted a garage-sale high-quality (for its time) double-DIN unit complete with navigation and other frills, picked up an OEM subwoofer/amp and grill from a boneyard, stored the amp (too many wires) and bought a cheap little amp for the subwoofer only. Pretty satisfied with the results since I don't run high volume, HUGE improvement over original.

Then I sold the car. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Still have one LS with bad speakers to fix. The other two wagons have Pioneer "enhanced audio."