Category: Knowledge Base
Plug and Play Harness Questions
Our harnesses allow you to complete a DIY installation or a Plug and Play installation. A DIY installation requires you to wire the harnesses provided by us and the harnesses that came with your radio together. The harnesses we provide remove the need to wire splice or cut any factory wiring. The connectors will just plug into the factory connections and provide color coded wires for you to match to the wiring that came with your aftermarket radio.
With our DIY products the harnesses eliminate the need to wire splice/cut any of the factory wiring and instead give you harnesses that plug into the factory wiring and provide clear labeled wires/instructions for you to follow and wire your radio together. You can install aftermarket equipment such as subwoofers and amplifiers with our harnesses. Our Plug and Play installation harnesses are already wired with all the necessary connections for your installation. Those connections include the connectors for your specific vehicle and the connection that plugs into your aftermarket radio. With our PNP harness all you have to do is plug the components in and start enjoying your new radio.
Our plug and play harnesses require no wiring at all. They are custom made to the radio you plan to install. In order to prepare and ship a PNP harness you must provide us with the radio brand you plan to install and sometimes the radio model. The harness is then made specific to your vehicle and radio combination. The brand of radio you plan to install might be a pioneer, or a Sony, Kenwood etc. But the model number of the radio will be something like pictured below.
Some radios require you to connect one or two wires yourself as they are physically attached to the radio and we cannot connect them for you. The harness will have these labeled whether they are for the steering wheel controls or the parking break. The steering wheel control wires are often blue/yellow on kenwood and brown on other radios. You will need to hook up the blue/yellow to the brown wire provided in our harness. The parking break wire is another connection you will have to make it will either need to be hooked up to your parking break or you can add a parking break bypass to your order and remove the need to make this extra connection.

Acura TL Aftermarket Radio Install Questions
Our accessories allow you to retain the factory steering wheel controls excluding the call control buttons. These buttons include volume up, volume down, mode, next track and previous track. The other buttons can be retained but require modifications to the steering wheel wiring and manual programming which result in an installation that is not plug and play.
If you want a plug and play installation then only the buttons referenced above will auto program. When replacing the factory radio with an aftermarket stereo you will also lose the center channel audio. Although you lose the center channel when upgrading the stereo, the new stereo will allow the factory system to be much louder and have better bass response.
The components in our kits allow you to keep the factory subwoofer of your Acura functioning with the factory radio as well. There is a SUB RCA that you will connect to the aftermarket radios SUB output and that will keep your factory subwoofer functioning. If you would like to add aftermarket subwoofers to your Acura you can do so with our harness/kit as well. You will just need to split the RCA to send signal to the factory sub and the other subwoofer or you can disconnect the factory sub.
Lastly, If you have factory navigation and it is working then our harness will allow it to keep working with the aftermarket radio. The touchscreen will respond and you will be able to look at the map but you will loose any audible warnings such as turn by turn directions. The factory backup camera if equipped will still work. You will also lose the factory HFL or bluetooth hands free but this feature is found in your new radio so it is unneeded. If your factory navigation is not working you can still replace the radio without an issue. If you want to place an aftermarket radio where the factory navigation screen goes, this can be done but you will need to make permanent modifications to your vehicle. We don’t recommend or support replacing the factory navigation with another radio, this includes the tesla style radio.
As for radio selection you can use any radio that has six RCA ports on the back for audio (3 pairs) and also offers a steering wheel control input. Many amazon/eBay non branded radio will not work either because they don’t have the correct inputs/outputs or because they will not fit correctly in the dash kit. When replacing the radio the part that is replaced is where you adjust the volume. So the two knobs are replaced with an opening for a standard double din radio. This opening can accommodate a standard single din radio and a pocket or a double din radio. The bigger double din radios will not fit. Other radios may fit incorrectly and leave a gap we recommend using a name brand radio from sony, kenwood, jvc, boss, pioneer, or jensen to ensure you have the best installation experience.
If when upgrading your radio you want to install a backup camera this is also a possibility and universal backup camera can be installed. It will just require you run wires from the rear of the vehicle to the front. Almost all backup cameras are compatible with our accessories. If you are looking for an OEM style camera you can visit our store to find one like the one pictured below.
3G Acura TL Climate Control Display Lights
If your climate control bulbs aren’t lighting up this article should help you determine the cause. First a disclaimer everyone’s situation is different the reason your bulbs may not be working may not be the same reason as someone else, if you proceed to troubleshoot and cause damage to your vehicle you are solely responsible.
My situation is:
Only a few lights don’t work:
This is most likely due to bad bulbs please check your Acura parts source for the correct part number for your vehicle Type S bulbs are different. Here are the common part numbers
39055-SEP-A31
39055-SEP-A22
39054-SEP-A01
None of my lights work:
The first step here is to check your fuses and make sure none are blown the TLs electrical system is pretty tied together and if one fuse goes out it sometimes takes out another, also the illumination fuse is under the hood and in the kick panel so both must be good for the lighting to work correctly.
All of my my fuses are good but no lights work:
This is the worst one. According to https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/light-bulbs-around-navigation-screen-out-851060/ and other posts/forums this leads to the electronics within the climate control display going bad. This happens when you put a bulb in the wrong orientation or put the wrong bulb in a location. This means that the electronics inside the board must be repaired and we currently don’t know anyone who does this repair. This almost always leads to just having to replace the climate control display. If you have navigation yes this means the entire navigation screen. Before condemning the climate control you can try replacing the bulbs to see if maybe they all just went out at once, this can happen but it is very rare.
Climate control displays are not interchangeable between all TLs only from models 04-06 and then 07-08 so a 2008 display will not work in a 2004 and vice versa.
Can I replace the bulbs with LED lights?
Yes you can we don’t really know too much about this topic but you would need nano wedge bulbs that are 14v and 8v and the color you want them to be.
Acura TL Aftermarket Radio No Sound | Not Working
Did you install a new aftermarket radio in your Third Generation(2004,2005,2006,2007,2008) Acura TL? Is the aftermarket radio powering on but you don’t hear anything through the speakers?or Do you get sound through the speakers but it gets very distorted at higher volumes? Is your factory navigation touchscreen not working after the install? If you are experiencing any of these symptoms you are in luck because we have the solution for you whether you have an 04-06 or an 07-08 Acura TL.
Continue reading Acura TL Aftermarket Radio No Sound | Not Working
Acura TL Factory Amplifier Replacement
Are you not satisfied with the sound quality of your Acura TL’s factory sound system? Are you starting to consider replacing the factory amplifier? We recommend you start with replacing the stereo if you are really looking for the best bang for your buck when it comes to upgrading. If you are set on upgrading the factory amplifier the information below should help. If you find that your Acura isn’t as loud as you would expect it to be the cause is often a factory amplifier going bad. The bad amplifier will limit the audio output and you will experience very low audio levels. This is a common failure of the Acura TL factory amplifier. The best solution is to simple replace the amplifier with one of our plug and play amps or another factory amplifier that does not suffer from the same problem.
This video will help you also.
Acura TL Factory Subwoofer Replacement
Are you looking to add more bass to your Acura TL? You would be surprised at the upgraded sound quality and bass if you upgrade your factory radio and use the factory speakers. You can find more information on that here. If you are a bass head or have already made your mind up that you are going to get rid of the factory subwoofer once and for all prepare for a challenge my friend. Check out our subwoofer and amp upgrade packages.