Hi, I bought this car about 2 months ago and it came with the factory radio, so I was planning on replacing it with my sony cd-player that I had on my previous car. I didn't want to cut any cables from all the stock wiring, so I bought a wiring harness from Cardomain.com and everything seemed fine. I matched the colors and all looked perfect. I installed the cd-player and turned it on w/o starting the car, and it was working super fine. Now, when I start the car, it start having some kind of troubles:
When the radio is off:
1º The CHECK ENGINE light comes on and stays on until you turn off the car.When the radio is on:
1º The AIR BAG light comes on. 2º The FUEL GAUGE goes all the way down and the ADD FUEL light comes on. 3º The CHECK ENGINE light comes on. 4º The TEMPERATURE GAUGE goes all the way down like if my car was off. 5º The RPM GAUGE goes all the way down too. 6º ALL the gears lights: P R N D 3 L come on with a square around each one like if I'm driving in those gears. 7º Under the gears lights a NO BUS message appears. 8º A noise that sounds like when you put the A/C to work appears.I don't know what the problem could be, I'm going to check every single connection from the wiring harness I bought, but anyways could that be the problem?? because the cd-player works fine when the car is off, sound great and don't seem to show any problem. But when I turn the car on, that's when all this happens.
I read on the owner's manual that the CHECK ENGINE light comes on whenever the car was out of battery or when some electrical device has been recently added. It says that you have to turn on the car and leave it on for some time so the car can get used to the new configuration. What I did was I put the stock radio back in and left the car on for like 15 minutes and after that I turned off the car and let it cool down for like another 15 min. When I turned it on, the CHECK ENGINE light was off and everything was like nothing had happened.
I was going to try the same thing with the Sony radio but I wasn't sure if I should do the same or not, since it's not just the CEL that goes on, it's also that the gauges go dead. I wanted to know if somebody had this problem before.
Also, all the Stratus owners (preferably ppl who own the same year and trim that I have, if possible ) how did you guys intall an aftermarket radio?? what kind of wiring they used?? was there a difference of wire colors?? There's gotta be something wrong with the way I connected the harness cables with the stock ones.
Also, is this like a factory trick so that you have to take your car to a dodge dealer just to add an aftermarket radio, so they can empty your pockets a little more?? I don't know, just wondering. The guys at the dealer told me I couldn't add one myself, I had to take it to the dealer if I wanted another radio.
Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance.