I just purchased a new kenwood KDC-138 head unit as well as two car speakers. The speakers were able to be installed onto my 2000 mercury cougar but the head unit gave me some troubles. The wires on my new kenwood KDC-138 headunit do not comply with my 2000 mercury cougars old radio wiring. What do you propose i do?

you need to go to any appliance store that cells cd players and buy a wire harness that connects to the cd players wires its called a ford wire harness, the people at the store should know where and what it is.

check your speakers and speaker wires for shorts or bare spots.

First thing you need to do is make sure you dont have a short in the speaker wires.. if any one of them touches ground it kills the system.. then you have to remove all the wires and start over... disconnect the battery... remove all the speaker wires only and then turn it on and reset it... then again remove the battery from the car and install them all make sure nothing is touching then turn it back on and see if that works.. you can also test to make sure you speaker wires are good by using a 9v battery and touching positive and negative of each speaker to the positive and neg of the battery... JUST FOR A SECOND it will pop.. that means your wires are good and no shorted to that speaker.

go to kenwood wesite to down load instruction manuals

set the unit to standby and press and hold the select button.(the up,down,left, right button on the left of the cdplayer)

do you have power at both supplys on the wire harness?( red and yellow) red wire will have power with the key on. Also make sure your ground is hooked up right.

do you have an owners manual -- ? I have a copy of you need one.. just send me your email address and I will forward it to you

If it brand new take it back to were it ws purchased to have it replaced.

Here's the quote from the manual regarding "dcer": "The speaker wire has a short-circuit or touches the chassis of the vehicle and then the protection function is activated. Wire or insulate the speaker cable properly and press the reset button. If the "PROTECT/DCER" code does not disappear, consult your nearest service center "

I believe the manual can be downloaded from crutchfield .com after you go to the Kenwood KDC-138 page on their website. The reset button is either on the lower left of the face or, removing the face, on the lower left of the body. Hope this helps you.