Steering wheel control for aftermarket head unit?

I bought an alpine head unit from halfrauds last week. Fitted that with no problem. I also told them I'd like to keep the steering wheel functions so they looked it up on their system and told me I'd need a harness for it but they would have to order it. So I ordered it.

Came to fit it today and can't find anything that remotely looks like the end on the harness. Any ideas?

Hi, i did this recently.......you do need a different harness that has a few 'extra' bits from it.....should look like a small matchbox size black unit, on my Kenwood i had one extra wire that comes out the back from the HU & this connects up to the 'matchbox' bit.....should be fairly easy...

Easy for me to say tho

Hope this helps too ..theres a few threads if you search about

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f9/steering-wheel-audio-controls-173560.html

I fitted an after market alpine head unit to my old td4

Yes you will need a steering wheel control integration unit. Small matchbox size with a few wiring harnesses.

You will need to get the right one for the make of head unit

They can be a pain to get hold of too !

I have the autoleads thing but I cant find anything with the right connector on the end?

I've currently got my freelander in bits in front of the house - luckily my other one isn't gone yet. Went back to halfords to confirm it was the right one for the car and they said yet. I also stopped by another car spares shop and he wasn't helpful either.

Wish I'd paid them the £30 to fit the stereo and everything else.

If you can....do a search on eBay ie type in all the details as in car/head unit...off the top of my head i think Alpine & Kenwood are exactly the same....basically you are 'splitting' the lead from the HU to the Freelander wiring harness.....2 blocks of wires one grey & one brown, one section is for the speaker wires......the other is live/earths etc...

Then the harness you got from Halfords SHOULD connect between the two you just split one end into the connector from the HU & one end to the original Freelander harness

Then you are left with a wire from the 'matchbox' bit......this should connect into a wire from your HU & if labelled says REMOTE......

Hope this helps at least a bit.....

Humm, that bit about the remote - My head unit has one of those. There are no wires in the kit that have something that looks like an aux connector?

What are these patch things I keep reading about? The first woman said I'd need a patch as well as the harness but then when she looked it up she said I wouldn't need one and there isn't one listed.

Right I have this one
PC99-X32 LANDROVER FREELANDER 01- 03 STEERING STALK CONTROL ADAPTOR + PATCH LEAD | eBay
However, the big square bit on the end I have no idea where it plugs into the freelander?

There are two types of wiring harness plugs on the early freelanders

It's either the round pin type you have listed in the eBay link or there's another type... The later BMW sized plug

I had this issue when I fitted my head unit

Let me find the link for you

Your plug in the wiring behind the stereo should look like this...

This is the later wiring harness

Halfords | Harness Adaptor PC99-X91 Freelander 2004-2007

Then you will need a patch lead to go from the wiring harness into the alpine head unit

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_570590_langId_-1_categoryId_265876

Hope that helps

Hi Hippo, seems strange how it says 2004-2007 but it looks like it could be the one. Yes I have bought the german round pin type one.

Hi what head unit did you take out?

Do you have a photo of the connector on the original car harness so you can get the right harness.

The one shown from halfords is not for the facelift "large" radio

I took out the standard tape player (it has a cd multichanger under the seat). It didn't have a screen or anything. Not sure which stereo it was but it didn't work. I've now got another one coming from ebay and the seller said he will happily refund me if it doesn't work so cant loose really.