Here it is! In this entry I will cover my experience installing this Kenwood DDX593 head unit into my car, a 2012 Subaru Outback. The reasoning is that nowhere could I find a step-by-step set of installation instructions, and it was me sifting through tons of videos on YouTube and trying to find anything to help me out here. Maybe it will help someone. Obviously, I am an amateur and have no experience at all doing this. Heck, I have never even stripped wires before. The strip/crimp tool was completely new to me. This is not a How-To article and in no way is it intended to replace official instruction manuals. Just some information if you need it and happen to have the same car I do and the same head unit. You know, just in case you find this blog entry somehow.

Items needed: Screwdriver (small and long handled), crimp/stripper tool, head unit and adapter + trim kits, zip ties, electrical tape (opt), magnet, pliers, crimp caps/caps, posi-taps/soldering items, pry tools, small ring terminal (if you wish to bypass the brake), patience.

I spent the days before install days looking into everything, trying to make mental maps, gathering necessary materials (caps, ring terminal, posi-taps, electrical tape), and hooking up the  wires beforehand.

I referred to all the manuals, watched videos, and tried to figure everything out before I’d start the install. Videos I’d recommend and referred to. Pac-Audio, Parking Bypass, Connecting Wires, and more wires.

I’m going to say right now and here, though, that I would not recommend the Pac-Audio adapter as between me and my brother we could not get it to work. Not sure what I did wrong, but the instructions were difficult to understand despite the video and Pac-Audio instructions and by the time we were hooked up and testing it all out I said “screw it” and I’ll just make do without the controls for the time being. …I do miss my steering wheel volume controls, though. If I were to make a guess I’d say it was a wiring thing, because there was one instruction about hooking the white/orange to the chassis ground which I don’t understand.

OK. So. Series of pictures from here on out.

Prying: Despite several different instructions, I found that starting from the upper right area to be the most useful. Boy, those things are on there!!! Managed to scrape up the dark plastic a little, but not too badly…took me a good 15 minutes to do this part. Saw a video where the guy put it inside the vent and after the fact, that was probably a good idea. I tried to get good images of the clasps here. My poor fingers, lol.

Unscrewing and unhooking: 4 screws hold the original unit in place. This is where the long handled screwdriver and a magnet to catch the screws is useful because as I was told repeatedly via videos, “if you drop them it will be literally Hell to retrieve.” Taking no chances here. Had a little bit of trouble with the upper left screw one, because the steering wheel was in the way, but two it was ON THERE. Needed some serious oomph and I am so glad I have nice tools so nothing stripped.

As you look at the pictures, you’ll see that the space to reach behind and unhook the wires is…very small. Thankfully being a female, I have small hands and was able to smoosh my hand into the air vent hole to help. Looking back, removing the screws and panel for the air controls would have been much more useful if you have big hands. Might need some help holding the unit, though.

^ Here I was trying to show you the small view I had of the cords behind the unit. You can see the 2 harness connected to the unit there.

^Smooshing my hand into the air vent. Ouch.

AAAAAAAND this is where I got my first major hang up. That little gray doohickey is the antenna. Given the space limitations and the lack of leverage it was nearly impossible to unhook this sucker. This was when I needed brother-backup. So as I recommended above he unscrewed and removed the  air unit controls (don’t try to remove the side paneling near your leg because those are held on my screws. We tried. Pretty hard. Thankfully nothing was broken…thank you Subaru plastic for not being super cheap) so that we had better leverage. Even then he had to use pliers to remove the antenna from the harness after unhooking it from the side of the paneling where it was hooked into.

^ SUCCESS. You can see the plier marks on the button.

Here is what the back of the OEM unit looks like…which, btw, was quite unlike the diagrams I was seeing and shown. That blasted antenna cable held us up for a long while and completely unexpected.

Microphone Placement: The next on the list was deciding where to put the microphone for audio calls. I wanted to clip it onto the headliner after watching this video and run the cord down the A-pillar, but after trying and failing to pry the trim (ANOTHER set of attachments that aren’t supposed to removed by amateurs methinks…considering the curtain airbags that make Subaru’s awesome in crash tests and those hooks make it so that it doesn’t fly into your face), I decided to go with what my brother said was recommended to begin with and much easier which is to just mount it on the steering wheel and run the line a short distance behind the panels. Worked totally fine when testing out sound later.

Next couple steps were done in tandem and this is where I started to forget to take pictures because it was hooking up the last wires and trying to figure out the stupid steering wheel adapter thing. My brother was busy putting together the adapter kit for the unit itself. Initially (having read some reviews that complained about the quality of the Metra plastic as compared to the hefty OEM metal brackets) he placed the OEM brackets on it, which was great, but we found that then the trim plate for the front wouldn’t secure to anything, so we switched back to the plastic which was perfectly fine. Posi-taps were great.

After fiddling back and forth (hooking and unhooking the battery terminal too…) and watching videos again and hemming and hawing over the instructions, we gave up altogether, ziptied the adapter into one of those helpful holes already in the car, zip-tied the wires to be more neat and to make sure there was no undue stress placed upon any wires. **huh. I just had a thought after looking at the above picture…I wonder if the problem was that I had the green/blue wire from the adapter already connected when I tried to program the thing, which seemed to be working fine and accepting the commands…just wouldn’t translate into the unit itself. I think the instructions tell you to hook it up after wards. ** Before placing the trim back on, we test the unit and fiddle some more with the Pac-Audio to no avail.

Sound: Check. Blue Tooth: a little spotty, but check. Radio: check. It was on mute initially and we were scratching our heads as to why audio wasn’t playing when BAM it came on and blew our ears off. Great! The sound was so much better than my OEM unit! Tried the call function. Played with other settings. Tried one more time for the steering wheel adapter before calling it a day and trim replaced.

TADAAAAAA!!

We tried out Android, iPod, USB, micro USB, charging, CD and of course, even DVD:

Parking brake bypass: Success!

And you can see the variable light feature too which is pretty cool.

One of these days I’ll either try again with the Pac-Audio or try to find an easier-to-use adapter.

Oh here’s a sound test for you

So here’s a side-by side for comparison’s sake:

Pretty proud of myself. 🙂 So overall it wasn’t all that difficult. Just a few things here and there, but all quite doable given I don’t have navigation or an amazing sound system to complicate life. The steering wheel controls were complicated enough. We should be ready for the beach trip now and now I can customize pictures and songs for the road without a huge tangle of wires that my Sansa Clip+ gave me in the old configuration. Also, people with fat fingers aren’t going to like the small access to the volume knob, because of the way the Outback has the console on such an inclined angled. Me? I’m fine with it.