bose radio in non bose altima

General discussion area for the L31-chassis Altima, including the 05-06 SE-R models.
dsylvia
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hey everyone, i just got an 05 2.5s of course without the bose 6 cd player.

i'd like to keep the car fairly stock looking so i was wondering if its possible to install the bose 6 cd player in my 2.5s. thanks in advance for any info.

-Derek-


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leeroy300
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the radio sort of works in an 08 A/C , I got a bose radio and tried to install it everything works ie steering wheel controls only thing that does not work is the speakers , I was only able to hear the front left and rear right and it sounded as if the speakers were blown . I was hoping it would work also but oh well .

gucio69
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I believe thats because the bose radio has separate amp from the headunit. The output was not being amplified and that is why the sound was low. I'm sure the Doctor can chime in on this as he has taken the interior of the AC apart.

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leeroy300
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So would this mean all I would need is a jumper plug of a sort and an external amp and all would be good ? Then all that would be needed to get Sat. radio would be the stock tuner ( anyone have one that upgraded to aftermarket stereo ) right or wrong ? And of course antenea. And of course this is assuming the adapter plug is actually in the car under the rear speakers for the tuner . I hope that it is there as the plug was in both my 04 Nissans ( titan and maxima ) even though I didn't have factory Sat.
Modified by leeroy300 at 1:04 AM 4/20/2008

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sntfloo
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i want to install the bose 6 cd player but

what must i do with the a/c ???

can anyone but a picture to explin ^_^

Modified by sntfloo at 12:41 PM 5/19/2008
Modified by sntfloo at 1:11 PM 5/19/2008

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rjdmmfl1
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sntfloo wrote:i want to install the bose 6 cd player but

what must i do with the a/c ???

can anyone but a picture to explin ^_^
ok, at the stillen show, i installed a 6 disc bose from an 08 altima w/ prem package into a non prem package vehicle. In order for the cd changer function to work, we had to switch the green circuit board from behind the face of the prem package stereo, and put it onto the face of the original stock stero (just the face not the stereo).

this was necessary to preserve the insert disc function of the bose stereo ...the radio harnesses in prem pack and non prem pack vehicles are the same regarding power ground and speaker outs.. the only problem we had is that the volume was low due to the lack of the bose amp...

to solve this, just install an aftermarker 4 channel amp for your highs.. in this case, you would just need high lo converters for the front and rear speakers.. send those signals via rca to the amp, and run the wires from the amp back 2 the speakers!
Modified by rjdmmfl1 at 1:17 PM 5/19/2008

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sntfloo
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Thanks Dr.feelgood about this info.

08AltimaNY
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If I had the Bose factory amp and Bose head unit, could I put it in my Non-Bose altima? Do you know if the altima's are already wired for the amp in the trunk? Just plug and play or isn't it worth it?

mrregina
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Hello,

I am very happy to have found your post. i have a 2007 Nissan Altima 3.5S without the Bose system but I do have 6 speakers from factory in the car. I would however like to install the Bose head unit into my car. I was reading your post about changing the green circuit board from the Premium stereo to the stock one to preserve the insert disc function. How is this done? Do you do this because you still have to use the stereo bezel from the stock stereo? Would you be able to provide me with more info on how you did the swap. I would really appreciate any help from one Nissan lover to another.thanks alot,Dave

mrregina
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Hello,

I am very happy to have found your post. i have a 2007 Nissan Altima 3.5S without the Bose system with 6 speakers from factory in the car. I would however like to install the Bose head unit into my car. I was reading your post about changing the green circuit board from the Premium stereo to the stock one to preserve the insert disc function. How is this done? Do you do this because you still have to use the stereo bezel from the stock stereo? Would you be able to provide me with more info on how you did the swap. I would really appreciate any help from one Nissan lover to another.thanks alot,Dave

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rjdmmfl1
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mrregina wrote:Hello,

I am very happy to have found your post. i have a 2007 Nissan Altima 3.5S without the Bose system with 6 speakers from factory in the car. I would however like to install the Bose head unit into my car. I was reading your post about changing the green circuit board from the Premium stereo to the stock one to preserve the insert disc function. How is this done? Do you do this because you still have to use the stereo bezel from the stock stereo? Would you be able to provide me with more info on how you did the swap. I would really appreciate any help from one Nissan lover to another.thanks alot,Dave
well, when you remove the stereo, and turn it around, you'll see a few (6 or so) screws on the back of the black faceplate of the stereo... you first remove those, then there's a greeen circuit board, unscrew that, and remove it from the premium package 6 disc changer, and replace the one on the stock stereo with this one. Its kind of hard to describe without pictures...

we didn't know we would have to do this, but it turned out to be absolutely necessary for full fncti9on of the 6 disc changer

rbsmith2000
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Don't know if you are still looking at this, I did this upgrade and the circuit board swap is not too hard. Just needs a philips screw driver and an ability to pry out the component (maybe blade screw driver?). The 2 boards are _almost_ identical. You will probably also want the 'load' button from the upgrade face plate. Not necessary, but better than the 'mute' button it replaces. The wiring harness lacks a socket in the plug for the amp power-on so you should plan on dealing with that. You can swap out harness plug with an upgrade version, or use a pin insertion tool to add the socket, or rig it with a multi-conductor wire jammed into the plug hole. Without fixing the plug, you get a nasty amp-pop from power-on of the unit. I just used a small after-market amp spliced into the standard speaker wiring and speakers. The gain control is only at 25% to get the same volume as the original setup, so it was more than adequate. I didn't add Bose speakers nor re-wire anything else. I _am_ trying to find out how to get the speed sensitive volume to work. I think it is just a missing wire between the head unit and the speedometer, but I would like some assurance.

When splicing the amp into the speaker wire, you will need wiring with an RCA jack on one end and wires on the other. I just bought a pair of good audio cables with RCA jacks at Radio Shack. Get the kind with copper shielding; the aluminum shielding is more difficult. You will be basically cutting them in half, so a pair will be good for all 4 speakers.

When you get the replacement unit from eBay or wherever, be sure to test it as soon as possible before making any changes. My first unit had a DOA changer mech. Just plug the unit into the wiring harness and test the radio tuner and changer separately. It will be loud enough for a basic test of functioning.

You may want to make a separate ground cable for the head unit so you can work on and test the HU without screwing it back in every time. An aligator clip jumper cable from Radio Shack might work as a temp ground. I thought I had an alternator whine problem in my amp because it was grounded to the frame better than the HU _while_I_was_testing_.

I had a channel bleed (crosstalk) problem in my amp, so I 'grounded the RCAs' to get rid of that. It may be better to get two smaller 2 channel amps instead of a 4 channel amp. You can often find these small amps under "motorcycle amp". Any of the these small amps should have low heat generation to live under your dash. Car amp junkies usually want to break ear drums and chromosomes rather than just build a medium audio setup. Those amps heat up, require rewiring and have other complications.

If you have any insight into the speed sensitive volume, let me know.

samgauto
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Just thought I'd post this as it is related to adding Bose to a car with the base system. I have an 2009 Altima SL with the base single disc CD radio. Although many will say I'm crazy, I decided to add the Bose system to the car. Yes it was somewhat pricy, but I was able to get several speakers used as well as the amp and the head unit. I used Ebay and Car-Part.com to look for used parts. Bose 2007-2009 Altima 4 dr parts are interchangeable (other than the coupe which has some different part numbers) Now, adding this is not plug and play but I learned it was do-able.

To start off, my stock system had six speakers. The Bose system has 9 (although I went with only 8 as I did not want to cut the center top dash for the middle Bose tweeter placement). None of the base system speakers can be used so I had to purchase the two front end dash tweeters, the two front door speakers, the two rear door speakers (there are none inside the rear doors of the base system) and the rear tweeters on the rear shelf. I also purchased the rear shelf and replaced it with the one with the Bose speaker grills.

There is a considerable amount of wiring involved (about 500 feet of 18 gauge wire) as the wiring on the base system connects the radio head right to the speakers but on the Bose system the radio outputs are run to the amplifier ( which mounts under the rear shelf between the rear woofers) then from the amplifier to each speaker. Also, two separate 'hot at all times' 15 amp fused power wires need to be brought to the amp in the trunk. The wiring diagram with pictures of the connectors from the Nissan manual on CD was a big help. The CD is available at Ebay, Nissan and Alldata.com.

The two biggest hurdles to this upgrade from non-Bose to Bose is the fact that (1) you will need to specify to the junk yards that you must have the connectors on the back of the radio and the amp in order to make the wiring work correctly and (2) there is some modification needed to the radio face plate (sort of).

The Amp has two connectors and the radio has 4 (the brown power plug on the radio is the same so actually u just need the large white radio plug. The other two white radio plugs are not needed as they are for Bluetooth and SAT radio....although I did add the SAT also..keep reading for that). I got the junk yards I used to send me the plugs with at lest 6 inches of wiring to make the install go smoothly. If you don't get the plugs then you will need to by several wiring harness from Nissan and they are expensive!

As far as the face plate issue goes, the radio faceplate is screwed onto the radio and it also is the faceplate for the climate control knobs. Unfortunately, Bose built cars always come with dual zone climate controls which has a diff cutout for the climate knob opening. Now, as you read in the thread here, you can swap out the faceplate from the stock radio over to the bose radio (also using the bose faceplate circuit board), That makes the cutouts all work but u dont have the bose logo (yes i wanted the bose logo too). So, with some patience, I was able to cut the bottom climate control section off of my base radio face plate and cut the dual zone section of the bose face plate. So I used the top Bose radio face with my bottom base climate control plate section. The seam is hardly noticeable and looks factory so I like the way it came out.

I thought the sound was a great improvement to the base system. A lot more base, especially from the front door speakers and the rear woofers. Plus the Bose head has the 6 disc changer and the RDS text readout for the radio data.

In doing all this I also decided to add the SAT radio. The same junkyard that had a 2008 altima 4dr with Bose also took the SAT control box out of the same car for me (with the plugs and a few inches of wire). This control box is also mounted on the rear speaker shelf but on the drivers side, the amplifier mounts on the passenger side. I did have to buy the mounting brackets from Nissan for the SAT and amplifier the but they were not expensive.

The SAT has about 9 wires that go from the SAT box to the SAT plug on the back of the Bose radio head and the SAT box needs one 15A on at all times feed (I tied into one of the new amp feeds) as well as a 10 amp feed powered at accessory and key on. This latter feed I ran to the trunk from the fuse panel.

You also have to drill a hole in the rear of the roof to mount the SAT antenna (that's the point when I new I was crazy). I bought the antenna from Nissan and they also sell the cover that comes already painted in the color of your car. The antenna was 90.00 and the painted cover was 30.00 plus a special nut that holds it on. Then you run the antenna wire from the SAT box to the antenna by routing it under the headliner. You can buy the antenna wire from Nissan to connect the antenna to the SAT box if the junk yard does not include it with the SAT box.

It is interesting to note that several on-line sites sell an aftermarket SAT hookup with is easy to install if you just want to stick with the base system and add the SAT feature. (of course you will need a subscription 9-17 per month depending on the package you select).

The system came out nice and the steering controls still work too. I noticed that the section of wiring that i got with the radio plugs off the Bose junk yard car was shielded wire, although were it ends at the amp plugs was not shielded. I was concerned about this 'lack of shielding' on my install but so far I have not had any issues. Technically, if i wanted to I could add the Bluetooth control box and wiring but that would call for a different steering wheel (more buttons) as well as some additional microphone parts on the headliner. I don't need the blue tooth and Nissan sells and easier to install aftermarket kit that replaces the sunglasses holder for those who desire Bluetooth technology.

If there is interest I will post some pictures and the part numbers of the completed install.

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AppleBonker
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Definitely post pictures! And, if you don't mind me asking, about how much did this cost you in total? While I don't think I would've made the same choice, I can still appreciate the amount of work required to get that system installed.

PS - Welcome to NICO!

samgauto
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Here are the part numbers and prices (new and used) that I came across during my upgrade:

Bose Radio part# 28185-ZN40C 758.35 new (100.00 used)
Bose Amplifier part# 28061-JA20A 752.60 new (125.00 used) also 4 screws part# 08168-6121A price is 0.84 each new).
Amplifier bracket part #28070-JA100 49.57 new.
Bose dash tweeters part# 28154-5Z200 114.45 new (45.00 used) (3 are needed but I used 2 as i did not want to cut hole in center of dash to add the third one).
Bose door speakers part# 28156-7Y300 194.88 new (65.00 used) (4 needed one per door also 4 screws for the rear speakers part# 08168-6121A 0.84 @ new).
Bose rear woofers part# 28157-7S200 196.38 new (50.00 used) ( 2 are needed and they mount under rear package shelf and shelf has to be removed to swap out speakers. Rear package shelf can then be put back or you can by upgrade shelf with Bose logos (read on)...
Rear rear package shelf with Bose speaker grills Part # for interior color charcoal is 79910-JA01A 149.85 new (see dealer for part# of other interior colors).
Rear SAT Antenna base part# 28208-ZX50A 90.93 new. Also needed is one special nut to secure base. Nut part# 28219-EM30A 7.43 new.
Rear SAT cover painted in color white is # 28228-ZK08A price 31.02 new. Color black is 28228-ZK40A. See dealer for part # of other exterior colors.
Rear SAT module (mounts under package shelf opposite side of amplifier part# 28051-EH00B 489.02 new includes brackets. Used price 75.00.

Obviously the least expensive way to do this is to find a salvage yard with a 2007, 2008, 2009 Altima 4dr with Bose (But NOT NAVIGATION). The yard will probably remove all these parts for you for a 1 shot price. I was able to source some used items (radio head, amp, SAT box , 1 door speaker and the 2 rear woofers). Because I was in a rush to get it done, the rest of the parts I bought new, so my total cost to do this job was about 1200.00 (not including wire cost and my own free labor). I'm sure had I searched more yards and waited I could have probably done this for about 500.00 or so but I wanted it done as soon as possible. The radio head, amp and sat box are easily found on the Internet. The speakers are not generally inventoried separately by the salvage yards so they may have to actually go out and look at one of their cars in stock. I am big on the factory look but I can understand that many will want to go aftermarket and get some bigger sound considering the price I paid.

I will post pictures of the completed project soon. Thanks for the interest.

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AppleBonker
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Definitely interested. At that price point, I personally would've gone aftermarket. If you knew what you were getting into and that's what you wanted, then by all means rock on!

Even if I don't think as highly of the Bose system, I certainly understand what an undertaking it is to install that setup in your car. Having gutted mine to run all new wiring, I know how taxing on your time it can be. Then, diagnosing any problems once things are wired eats up a bunch more.

I'm not terribly interested in how the car looks now (except some of the modifications you made to the center console), but I would totally like to see some in-process pictures if you have them. Many people have asked about swapping in the Bose system, and my response was generally that it takes a lot of time and money and that an aftermarket option would be easier and cheaper. Most people don't realize that it isn't as simple as swapping the head unit and the speakers. I give you props for taking it on, and more importantly appreciate the advice on parts you are giving to others who may be interested. :bigthumb:

samgauto
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Sorry for the delay but I have had no luck trying to add pictures here. Sent an email to the form admin. but no reply as of yet. Any ideas please let me know.

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SHIFT_COUPE
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samgauto wrote:Sorry for the delay but I have had no luck trying to add pictures here. Sent an email to the form admin. but no reply as of yet. Any ideas please let me know.
Pictures need to be hosted offsite and posted here.

Here are some instructions to help you out.

how-to-post-pictures-using-photobucket-t521110.html

samgauto
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Ok. Thanks for the help and links to posting photos. Here goes. Here is a photo of the added two 15 AMP feed wires (hot at all times) to the AMP.

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samgauto
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Here is the Accessory on feed that was added for the SAT unit.

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samgauto
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Here is the bracket installed that holds up the amp. You will need to remove the rear package shelf to install this. Actually you need that removed anyway as the base speakers are screwed in from that side, since I had it off I decided to buy the special speaker shelf with Bose speaker grills anyway but its not needed really.

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samgauto
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Car: 2009 Altima SL

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Here is the rear of the BOSE radio. Actually, the plugs on the back appear identical to the BASE unit but on the BASE only one white and one brown grayish connector were plugged in. The middle white connector is the SAT wires and goes from here to the SAT control box in the trunk.

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Last edited by samgauto on Sun Jun 24, 2012 6:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

samgauto
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Here is the amp going up.

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samgauto
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The very important two brown amp plugs. The salvage yard gave me both plugs with about 18 inches of the wiring and the amp. Having these plugs is what makes the upgrade possible as I am not sure if there would have been any other way to properly connect the wires to the amp. The wiring diagram was a help too.

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samgauto
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Here is the amp in place. Finally! Notice the right mount screw...I used this as the grounding screw as there are two ground wires in the brown plugs.

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samgauto
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Car: 2009 Altima SL

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Here is the Bose speaker installed in the drivers front door. They fit right in the four doors but the base speaker plugs wont insert so I cut the plugs open removed the pins and pushed them right on the speaker pins.

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samgauto
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Here is some shots of the added wiring.

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samgauto
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Here is the amp (on the right) and SAT box on the left. Actually, in this shot you can see that I also mounted the Bluetooth control box (the larger metal control box just under the SAT box) however it is not connected as I decided not to add that feature.

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samgauto
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Here is the SAT antenna wire as it leaves the trunk and heads up behind the left rear pillar trim then over the headliner to the roof. Also the antenna with cap (available in color) installed. Sorry I did not take a picture of me drilling the hole for base mount.

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samgauto
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Car: 2009 Altima SL

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Shot of a used rear woofer that was taken from a salvaged coupe. Interestingly, these came with spacers that I unscrewed and removed. For some reason the coupes rear woofers need black plastic spacers. Also a shot of the Bose rear speaker grills as part of the updated package shelf. (in Charcoal color).

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