How do you replace the factory stereo with an aftermarket stereo for a 2001 Alero?

Answer 1

Alright, well there are two ways to go about doing this. The first way (and simpler way is to buy ALL of the necessary parts. 1: Your new stereo 2: a radio antenna adapter 3: An installation kit 4: (the thing i didn't have and couldn't find without ordering) A wire harness. The wire harness cost like 110 to 130 dollars at bestbuy/circuit city, and i can't even begin to imagine the look on my face when my whole stereo installation toppled over 300 dollars just for a new stereo. First you want to disconnect the ground on your battery. then second you want to unscrew the screws that are to the left and right of the climate control. One's near your gas pedal-ish and has a plastic cover on it. The second is by the auxillary cigarette lighter. Once those are out you want to begin to remove the climate control. take a straight edge and begin moving it around the front of the climate control to pop it off. Second you can either remove your gear shifter or you can put the key in, put it into 1 or 2 and then work around it but either way you need to get plate that covers the shifter out of the way. i didn't completely remove it, just muscled it around until i could see the hoses coming out of the back of the climate control (CC). remove them all in whichever order you want. once you get all of those out of the way (make sure you don't rip out the small light that is near the bottom where your storage tray is) you can take out the CC and set it aside. Now there are 3 screws to get rid of your old stereo. 2 on the left and 1 on the right. unscrew em. slowly take out your stereo so you don't rip out any cords. Unplug the stereo. it should have connections in the back. one is the power/speaker wire etc the other is the radio. now you can remove your stereo. Now that that's out of the way this gets easy. You can now take this next part to a work bench and out of the car so your back gets a little relaxation from all the leaning forward... work on this as long as i did because no one else provides a way to do it without having you pay money... solder or crimp the wires from A) your new decks wire kit to B) the wire harness you bought that fits your alero. Not sure if the colors match entirely becuz like i said... i didn't have a wire harness and i went thru hell. Not quite sure how the colors work out so that's yours to figure out. once that's done, you don't need to do much more wire work. now you need to assemble your new stereo. pull it out of its box and follow the instructions provided on how to mount it. once you get it all together, (shouldn't be that hard) you need to adapt your radio wire. Plug the radio cable (its thick and black) from the car to the adapter then let it chill. If your new stereo has an iplug cable like mine, run it to where ever you want. i drill a hole in mine at the back of the storage tray so now its down there by the front cup holder/ little light. Plug all your stuff in where it goes theres only like 3 or 4 things. For me i had my iplug, the rca cables for my subwoofer, the speaker wires and the radio wire. Put it all in, push it back and out of the way hopefully it's not too much of a pain. screw your deck into the mounting kit and back in place. put it all back together like you took it apart. you're done.

THE HELL WAY: so i didn't have a wire harness, and i know you all are like, what a retard but heres for us who wanted to save 10 bucks....or 10 days of time to order said part. Do everything up till the wire harness part. What i did was entirely clip off my old wire harness. So yes, i had a bunch of wires hangin loose. The reason your battery is disconnected is becuz if certain wires touch (not sure which ones. all of mine touched at once) a large spark will happen and you will blow 3 or 4 fuses (that i know of) If you did blow it... you have 3 spark plug boxes. ones in the door jam of the driver side. one in the passenger side WHICH YOU WILL NEED becuz that's where the lights to the dash are. and one inside the trunk. i blew a 10 amp 15 and 20 amp and i know i blew one more cuz my chime no longer works when the doors open but the keys are still in.

Back to installing it. You have to match up the colors of your system stereo with the colors of your new stereo. that's right so you'll need to do some reading. As for the alero's stock color coded wires

Left Front Speaker Positive Wire (+): Tan

Left Front Speaker Negative Wire (-): Gray

Right Front Speaker Positive Wire (+): Light Green

Right Front Speaker Negative Wire (-): Dark Green

Car Audio Rear Speakers Size: N/A

Car Audio Rear Speakers Location: N/A

Left Rear Speaker Positive Wire (+): Brown

Left Rear Speaker Negative Wire (-): Yellow

Right Rear Speaker Positive Wire (+): Dark Blue

Right Rear Speaker Negative Wire (-): Light Blue

In the end there were a few wires i didn't use. 5 of them. brown, purple blue i think a green and something else. sorry for not being helpful, go buy the wire harness and you won't have this problem. i just used electrical tape to cover those up and i didn't worry about them. crimp the wires from your new stereo to these colors as defined and then put it all back together as mentioned before. If you get lost or are confused with any part of this, just go ahead and mess around till you figure it out. If I can do it by myself without any help but the color of the radio wires, this should be a cake walk for you.