I have completed the installation of the Pioneer AVH-X3500BHS head unit in my 4Runner. I want to thanks all the people in this community who posted the information and responded to my questions. I couldn't have done this without your helps.
My installations:
Some issues I had were the FM reception and the bypass switch. At first, I installed the bypass switch and it works nicely. Per instructions, I connect the black wire to the black on the harness, the blue to the blue/white, and the green to parking break wire on the head unit. Then I was having issue with the radio reception. After posting question here, I found that the 4Runner has an antenna booster and it needs to power up by connection the blue wire from the harness (power antenna wire) to the blue/white wire from the head unit. I left this out at first thinking there is not power antenna in this model of 4Runner. So the reception issue was fixed and I'm getting all the stations I got before. I few days later when my kids play a DVD, the bypass switch stops working. It turns out that by adding the antenna booster wire to the blue/white wire, the bypass quits working. I work around this by switching the antenna booster wire to the yellow wire from the harness (the ACC switch wire).
My installations:
- Pioneer AVH-X3500BHS
- Axxess Metra ASWC-1 Universal Steering Wheel Control Interface with New Micro B Connector
- Metra 95-8202 Toyota DDIN Multi Dash Kit
- Metra 70-1761 Radio Wiring Harness For Toyota 87-Up
- MicroBypass Parking Brake Override Bypass
- USB/3.5mm AUX Extension Cable
- Kenwood DDX470 – the reason I like this head unit was because it has the knot volume control rather than pressing +/- buttons. That makes much easier to control while driving. The sound is also good, about the same as the OEM. FM radio is good but not the best. I'll explain later. But the biggest reason I decided against this is the graphic display. It's so basic. The touch screen is full of rectangular buttons rather then pictures. This head unit is also lacked a remote control; something very useful when the kids are watching videos from the back seats.
- Pioneer AVH-X4500BT – I like this unit for it larger screen size (the largest of all three). The buttons are in the bottom rather then the side. This make it a little easier to handle since you can rest your hand on the dash while control the buttons. The graphic is much better looking than the Kenwood. The tilt screen seems to be nice but not work well for 4Runner. When installed on the 4Runner, the screen is already tilted up a little. This unit only allows the screen to tilt up. I don't see a need for tilting further up but tilting down would be better. Again, the FM radio is good but not the best.
Some issues I had were the FM reception and the bypass switch. At first, I installed the bypass switch and it works nicely. Per instructions, I connect the black wire to the black on the harness, the blue to the blue/white, and the green to parking break wire on the head unit. Then I was having issue with the radio reception. After posting question here, I found that the 4Runner has an antenna booster and it needs to power up by connection the blue wire from the harness (power antenna wire) to the blue/white wire from the head unit. I left this out at first thinking there is not power antenna in this model of 4Runner. So the reception issue was fixed and I'm getting all the stations I got before. I few days later when my kids play a DVD, the bypass switch stops working. It turns out that by adding the antenna booster wire to the blue/white wire, the bypass quits working. I work around this by switching the antenna booster wire to the yellow wire from the harness (the ACC switch wire).
