What's wrong my headunit??

[Se7en]

I just bought a 98 328is coupe, and the OEM deck was not working. It use to power up, but the LCD backlight was dead, so i coudln't see anything.

I couldn't use it becuase i did not have the radio code.

Then after a while it would stop turning on. I thought the deck just went, so i didn't think much of it, and replaced it with a Pioneer deck. After i wired it up and isntalled it, it still doesn't power up.

i checked the fuse box in the engine bay and found one blown fuse, so i replaced it.

Checked it, and it still doesn't power up.

What else can be wrong? I've double checked the wiring five times now and it is correct. What other problem can it be?

Thanks in advance.

[propr'one]

can be an easy fix. There's 2 wires you need to worry about (plus ground).

One of them is usually red (It probably has a sticker on it that says ACC) one of them is probably yellow and says (BAT) or just +.

Check the yellow one first for power. It should ALWAYS be getting power. Car on/off/etc. If it does not, you have to give it 12V (since the wire is likely frayed, as you said you already checked the fuses, you can
A) do it properly and run a 12V line from the + battery terminal
B) be lazy, run a 12v line from the cigarette lighter.

If the yellow (or BAT, or + wire) does have power, check the other one (red, ACC). This wire should only get power when the car is either on, or in ACC position. If it doesn't, this is a bigger issue. You can just splice the yellow wire into the red one, however, this will mean your deck will always be on. (you can obviously still turn it off by pressing the power button). Having your deck on all the time isn't too big of an issue, since your deck doesn't use very much power. However, your amp, which is controlled by the deck (amp turns on when deck turns on, assuming you wired the (blue, or blue with white stripe) remote wire correctly. The amp does use quite a bit of power, and will kill your battery if left on.

My suggestion is, if your ACC wire doesn't work, either bust out a bentley and trace back the ACC wire to the ignition, or have someone do it for you (get a good shop to do this, shouldn't take more than about 1 hour)

[elroy]

fuse box under the hood? Check the manual for fuse to radio/deck. Are any other lights not working. ie signals, time?

[Se7en]

So my 12v wasn't working, and i ran it from my cig lighter, now my deck turns on, but i have a new problem.. there's no sounds going through the speakers!

This has been such a headache..

[ZiMMie]

look on the left side of the trunk, look for the stock amp, there is a fuse on the amp see if its blow.

[Se7en]

Problem solved thanks to propr'one, turns out i didn't wire the remote (thought that was for the amp only, but the E36 has a stock amp, which i didn't know).

Thanks everyone!

[6appeal]

My stock deck just doesn't light up. I can see the display in the daytime so I know it works. Are there bulbs I can change or something? I have a CD33 deck.