The Cat's Studio

Want to change the stock radio that came with your KIA Rio 2000 and put a new one in?

To remove the old radio you need a Philips No 2 screw driver and a flat one.

1. Remove the cap of the recycled air lever.
2. Remove the ash tray.
3. Remove the screw on the left of the ash tray opening.
4. Grab inside and pull at the frame that surrounds the radio, air controls and ash tray.
5. Use the flat screw driver to unlock the snap-in brackets all around the frame.
6. Pull out the frame and hang aside.
7. Remove the four screws around the frame that holds the radio and the tray below it.
8. Gently pull out the frame and disconnect the antenna cable and power/speakers connector.

Most new radios have a ISO connector to plug into the car wiring. If your car does not have corresponding connectors (like the 2000 model Rio) you have three choices.

• Buy a wire harness for your type and model of car.
• Go to a garage or dealer of your choice and ask them to connect the radio.
• Grab your solder iron and wire it yourself.

Warning! Before you cut or remove any wire - disconnect your cars battery to avoid nasty surprises and serious damage.

The radio I was going to put in had male/female ISO connector sets for speakers and power. It also had (fortunately) a 15cm labelled wire sticking out of every socket of the female connectors. I only needed to find the corresponding wire in the KIA and then solder them together. With a neat heatshrink insulation of course to prevent short circruits. Here is the layout of the original KIA connector:

• brown - 12V from Ignition
• black - Ground
• yellow/black - 12V permanent (to keep the memory of the radio)
• blue - 12V from Light Switch (used to dim the radio light in some models)
• white/red - Front Left Speaker (+)
• white/green - Front Left Speaker (-)
• green/red - Rear Right Speaker (+)
• green/yellow - Rear Right Speaker (-)
• yellow/red - Front Right Speaker (+)
• yellow/blue - Front Right Speaker (-)
• red/green - Rear Left Speaker (+)
• red/blue - Rear Left Speaker (-)

If in doubt you can check the voltages with a multimeter and the speakers are best checked with a 1.5V battery rather than with the ohm-meter because you can hear the scratchy noise that tells you where each speaker is. I was surprised by the diameter of the speaker wires KIA had installed. Extremely thin - they obviously don't know the slightest thing about speakers nor Ohms law.

Nevertheless the new radio performs quite well.

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