So I got a new stereo for my 08 Tacoma and I bought the wiring harness adapter for it…everything was pretty basic on the stereo side, but the wire color doesn’t match on the adapter side of the OEM wires…can’t seem to find anything online that talks about this issue and I’ve confirmed with the harness company that’s it’s correct the correct one. Also the plugs are different sizes so it’s not mixed up….any thoughts?


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More info about the hardware would probably help. What head unit did you decide on? And tell us about the wiring harness, i.e., make and model.

I just replaced the head unit in my truck a few months ago. I used a wiring harness kit and added an amp and 4 more speakers. So my memory is fresh.

Can't see your pic They are not going to match the OE wire colors. They will match the colors of the wires on your new headunit. Except for maybe parking brake on the radio.

Added link to photo

I bought a JVC DD…the stereo wiring matched the harness wires , but as you see in the photo…the red, yellow, black did not match the OEM wires.

This. The wire colors for the vehicle are going to be somewhat proprietary. When you connect everything, it will match up. I got a module that allowed me to keep all of my steering wheel controls. The tech has come quite a ways in the last decade.  

This.

OP I installed my first car stereo in 1979. I have since worked on over 16,000 vehicles, and never in my life have I seen a vehicle that the wire harness colors matched the aftermarket unit. The aftermarket is standardized as far as colors go, vehicle manufacturers are NOT. Wire it up according to the aftermarket harness diagram, you'll be fine.

Need to add a caveat here, going back even to the 80's, car makers started experimenting with amplified systems in their cars, Bose and others, and these systems are not just plug-n-play for the most part, some have an outboard amplifier, some have tiny amplifiers at the speakers themselves. They do take some additional work to make sound.

I retired from that biz in the early 2000's, and am not familiar with systems past 2005 or so.

If you have a so-called "premium" sound system, you may have these issues when installing an aftermarket system. You may need to bypass factory wiring and wire your own system direct to the OEM speakers (or aftermarket if you're replacing speakers).

Yup. My moms Tahoe's under dash wiring is hacked up to bypass the factory amp. I was going to install a used factory radio but holy shit it can just continue to be hacked up.

I remember when Bose teamed up with GM in 1983 to introduce specialized stereos for different models. I'm sure it wasn't great, but it was better than the stock systems of the day. My 1981 Grand Prix had a single speaker in the middle of the dash. That was it. By 1990, it was common to be able to order an OEM stereo with an amp. A friend of mine ordered a Mustang LX 5.0 that way. It may have even had a sub, although I don't recall. It sounded good but that was compared with stock systems.

They make wiring harnesses that allow for use of the factor amp. I tried that route but even with new head units, factory amps still tend to be weak and not sound all that great.

I’ve done two installs in the last year using a JVC head unit. One in a Nissan and one in a Subaru.

I’m both cases, the color of the wires on the wiring harness that came with the head unit matched the color of the wires on the vehicle specific integration harness (PAC or Metra harnesses in my cases).

The two harnesses have bare wire on one end that were soldered together. On the other end of both harnesses were plugs (similar to molex connectors) that plug directly in to the head unit and then to the cars wiring. No color matching or splicing in to the cars wiring was required as the integration harness I got had the correct plugs to connect to the factory wire.

It appears the Tacoma has two options for wiring harnesses. One for the non-JBL stereo and one specific to vehicles that have the JBL.  Which do you have?

Go over to the Crutchfield site and plug in the details for your truck. It might help answer some questions. You can also buy the vehicle specific install documentation from them for $9.99 if you wanted to.

For some reason, the picture you posted isn’t viable to me, so I cant offer much more than my experience.

Can't see pic, but if the wiring harness is attached to the HU, doesn't the harness just plug into the factory harness?
Colors shouldn't matter at that point as long as the harness to HU is right.

No help here but putting in a plug for Crutchfield. I installed to head units, 2014 Tacoma and 212 RAV4. Bought the plug-n-play option from Crutchfield ($24) and every thing works. Steering controls, backup cam, USB, Aux.

Then just bought the wife a 2024 CX-5. I told the dealer. I want that SOB to rock. She got an OEM 10 speaker with sub system and momma be happy.

Yeah, what we used to say in the shop : No highs, no lows, must be Bose. lol. But yeah, the amped systems did sound better than the old factory systems from back in the day, old GM trucks with those 3" speakers in the dash, yikes.

OP e-mailed me his pic, looks like a simple two plug 'Yota to me, so i'm thinking non-amplified in which case it's easy-peasy.