How do i know what wire is what

This is defanitly your problem car has amp in trunk factory you have to hook your remote (blue white stripe) up to the power accessory wire wich will only come on when your key is turned back so use a light tester on wires to see which wire is not hot until key is on one power wire will stay on constantly dont use constant it will run the battery dead

It sounds like you shorted a wire during the installation and the fuse is probably blown.

Hi Jamie, Here's an old trick which you may find useful. Take a run down flashlight cell and confirm the wiring to the speakers by holding the earthing line of the speaker cable to the negative and flash the positive side with the feed to the speaker one at a time. With each swipe you will hear a thump from each speaker as you connect and disconnect. In that way you can confirm the cables are the ones you are connecting. Color coding is not always the same. Use a voltage test meter to confirm the constant power and ignition power and don't forget to earth the set once all other connections have been made, Withour an earth it won't work, but you know that anyway. Regards John

2000 Chevrolet Impala Car Stereo Radio Wiring Diagram
Car Radio Constant 12v+ Wire: Orange
Car Radio Switched 12v+ Wire: Yellow
Car Radio Ground Wire: Black
Car Radio Illumination Wire: Gray
Car Stereo Antenna Trigger: White
Left Front Speaker Positive Wire (+): Tan
Left Front Speaker Negative Wire (-): Gray
Right Front Speaker Positive Wire (+): Light Green
Right Front Speaker Negative Wire (-): Dark Green
Left Rear Speaker Positive Wire (+): Brown
Left Rear Speaker Negative Wire (-): Yellow
Right Rear Speaker Positive Wire (+): Dark Blue
Right Rear Speaker Negative Wire (-): Light Blue

Give me some more information about this problem. May be i can help.

The wire that was for the alarm was a single wire that was grounded to the radio chasis, its a different color for 80's to 90's but if you know the one you took off to the old deck then just ground it somewhere on the outside of the new deck and you will be set.

There may be extra wires you don't need. The basic set of wires on the radio is 4 pairs of colored wires--one black-striped and one plain for each speaker. Yellow is usually accessory power, red is hot, and black is ground. Some additional wires may be one for a power antenna, one for an external amplifyer, and one for facelight (in case it will run on dimmer)
The car should have the following corresponding wires:
Radio 12v--- orange
Radio Ground--- black
Radio Ignition--- yellow
Radio Illumination--- brown
Dimmer--- gray
Power Antenna--- pink (if you have one)
LF Speaker +/- tan - grey
RF Speaker +/- lt green - dk green
LR Speaker +/- brown - yellow
RR Speaker +/- dk. blue- lt. blue

The car or radio could have additional connectors, such as for a subwoofer, CD changer, etc.

first things first check your fuses and i mean all of them replace all that are bad with proper fuse amprages

you are going to have to do some probing of those wires to find the ones you need you can buy a voltmeter(25$ or less) or a simple test light(2-5$) from a local automotive store

colors to look for are
primary power wires :red,yellow, black for ground
accsesory wire from igntion ,orange or blue with wite stripe and posibly pink(rare)

any wire that has an on and off state from the turn key igntion can be used depending on its gauge/size test the orange one first as this is the most common color to use for the accsesories wire
to test you have the igntion in the on postion if you get a readying of +12 volt and then turn the igntion of and recive a reading of 0 volts this would be an on off wire
note: check the auxsilary postion of the turn key igntion also if there is no power to the wire in the auxzilary postion it is the incorect wire for the radio

BLACK> should be a ground wire
RED>should be an igntion supply wire of a larger diameter
YELLOW> should be a battery supply lead strait from the fuse box battery conection "always on"connect the wire of the stereo labeld battery to the always on battery lead ,this is for the memory function of the radio

ORANGE>(may be pink only seen pink in buick's) should be an on/off wire from the igntion and used for the main power of the radio so it is shut of when the car is turnt of this is also the wire you would hook the amplifyer on off up to if the radio dont supply the blue wire with white stripe aka ant/motor
test the on off state of the wire befor conecting it to the radio
you will conect the red (+ positive) wire to this on/off state wire

cation! disconect the batery ground wire when conecting anything to the main yellow battery wire as it is directly conected thru an exspensive(12$) 30 amp fuse

if you dont know what wires are what for the speakers in the car use a 9 volt batery to find the speaker wire leads (ues a brand new 9 volt)
ntsc standard color pairs are
white and grey front
green & brown for back
i dont remeber the left and right
the black stripe on the speaker leads means the ground or negative side of the speaker
good luck instaling your new radio hope i have helped you out

Look for a dimmer wire,, sounds like your radio dont have the option for the car dimmer switch,,

the power for these lights run through the dimmer wire for the radio. ether its not hooked up or the radio dont have the option for it.

there is a way to bypass the radio dimmer option,, BUT you have to know what your doing or you could fry something.

look for Car Radio Illumination/dimmer Wire: should be Green.

this got easy after a while 2 ways, i had friends who would not take the time to spend 8dollars to buy a harness connector for a new cd player and would splice everything together like takeing the red and yellow wires and connecting them all together as one. this drains ur battery unless ur cd player can completly power down by the power button not all do... but keep this in mind on GM cars the 2 wires of the same wires like purple the one with a black stripe is ground they go together stripe on stripe also there is 2 extra wires one is ORANGE and BROWN u dont need these dont even mess with them even if u have a connector block them off THESE TWO COLORS IS FOR FACTORY STEREO IF SO THESE WIRES CAN AND WILL MAKE IT SO U DONT HAVE DASH LIGHTS so always buy a connector ond dont mess with these wires block them off and dont ground them out.