Leaf S - replacing the radio?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

pereze

Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Messages
9
Hi Everyone,

I am new here and just purchased my leaf the other day. I plan on making some modifications to the Audio and other areas so I am thankful I found this community!

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed. I tried searching here and Google but couldn't find the answer to my question.

I just bough the Leaf S with the quick charge package. The radio looks like a standard double DIN radio I would find in a "normal" car. I was assuming the radio could not be replaced because it somehow helped control other aspects of the car (like cars with HVAC incorporated, or other settings/features). Does anyone know if the radio can be replaced or why not?

I may end up leaving it alone, but I am a little worried about the signal coming out from the radio being manipulated and having to use the speaker level outputs.

Thanks in Advance!
 
Does anyone happen to know the pin outs on the back of the leaf S radio? I have figured out what a couple of the inputs are because they match the Clarion unit in the SV/SL. I am hoping once I know the pin outs, I could get a harness from somewhere to make it work with an aftermarket unit.

Thanks,
Eric
 
Eric,

I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure the radio in the S is independent of the climate controls, unlike the SV and SL. We have both and Ive fiddled with both quite a bit and I can't think of anything in the S radio settings that has anything to do w the climate control
 
Has anyone been able to upgrade the stereo on the 2013 Nissan Leaf S. I got the charger upgrade, but the car did not have navigation. I really want to upgrade the stereo. I want to add navigation. Please anyone with any information please reply.
 
findinglouis1972 said:
Has anyone been able to upgrade the stereo on the 2013 Nissan Leaf S. I got the charger upgrade, but the car did not have navigation. I really want to upgrade the stereo. I want to add navigation. Please anyone with any information please reply.

You'd probably be better off with a standalone Nav unit, as they seem to be way ahead of the built-in units being used in most cars. You could always mount it semi-permanently.
 
Standalone navigation would work, but want the bigger backup camera view as well. I really want an indash navigation system. Has anyone had the factory 2013 Nissan Leaf s radio out and have photo of the space , wires and connections?
 
findinglouis1972 said:
Standalone navigation would work, but want the bigger backup camera view as well. I really want an indash navigation system. Has anyone had the factory 2013 Nissan Leaf s radio out and have photo of the space , wires and connections?

Just curious if there is an update. If you were successful, I may try to follow in your footsteps.8
 
pereze said:
Does anyone happen to know the pin outs on the back of the leaf S radio?

Have you compared it to the 2012 standard radio here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=16433" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It may be similar. Otherwise, you could download the AV schematic from Nissan.
 
I have a 2014 Leaf S as well, I'm @ the stereo shop but they measured and said the opening is larger than a standard double din so I would need a kit. Did not remove the unit to see if it would fit depth wise. Does anyone know of a kit for the leaf? After all these years, I'm surprised there hasn't been one made, makes me wonder if depth or something else is an issue.
 
booper said:
Any updates here? Interested to hear if anyone has had any success replacing a head unit in an S.
Interestingly, if you visit Crutchfield's website and select your LEAF S model, it shows double DIN radios that are compatible. Apparently they've done the work for us and found that a double DIN radio does fit. They also have some (extra price) kits that will enable the steering wheel controls to be active. Still looks like we would lose the rear-view camera though...
 
Wow, didn't know this thread was still alive until I was doing some additional searching a few minutes ago. I thought I might be able to give back with what I have learned so far.


  1. A double DIN radio will fit, but leaves a gap on both the right and left side. After doing a lot of image searches, I took a gamble and assumed a 2013 Frontier has the same radio (which also seemed to be confirmed after looking at wiring diagrams). I ordered the Metra 95-7619
    http://www.amazon.com/Metra95-7619-Stereo-Installation-2013-Up-Frontier/dp/B00GNG3X7W
    I was only able to use the middle insert and used a glue gun to attach it to the main dash kit.


  2. The wire harnesses for the leaf are odd. You will need multiple harnesses if you want to maintain certain functions like backup camera, steering wheel controls, usb, etc to work.

    Here is the completed harness in all its glory. I know it looks really bad, but I did clean it up a bit and tie it up nice. A bonus of the leaf is there is a lot of room behind the radio.


    Here are the various connectors I used:
    • Ax-nisusb-2 - for USB connector
    • 40-NI12 - for Antenna
    • 70-552 - standard harness. I actually used the Scosche version and moved over a couple of additional wires for steering wheel controls from this harness. You could also just use 2 of these
    • Ax-NIS32swc - for backup camera (more on this below)


  3. For the backup Camera I used the Ax-NIS32swc harness. This harness says it is for steering wheel control, but I found it mostly useless for anything but the camera. The camera on the Nissan's (and some other OEMs) are 6v cameras. While I read reports that you could feed it 12v, I didn't want to risk it so I dropped in a 12v to 6v step down converter.
    http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00NICVEE8/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1452869678&sr=1&keywords=12v+to+6v
    I wired that into the harness and plugged the RCA into the back on my new double din.


  4. The generic Nissan harness does not have wires for the steering wheel controls. I used a wiring schematic to figure out the pins I needed to use and then added wires from an extra harness I bought. If you get some good pliers, you can pull the wire out of the harness fairly easily and push it into the harness you are planning on using. I used the Axxess ASWC-1. If you look on their site for instructions for the Nissan Frontier, you will find the right pins and connections.

For me, I had so many different things to power, I used a relay to help distribute the power. You need power for the antenna, camera, steering wheel control module, emergency brake by-pass, the stereo itself and for a relay to any amps you are running. It seemed crazy that all of these things would need power, but it worked out in the end.

I am REALLY happy I made the change. It was a pain, and took a lot of planning, research, etc, but I love having a solid output to the amps, HD radio, Bigger backup camera, etc. I have only gotten volume controls to work from the steering wheel controls, but that was the main thing I wanted to work. I haven't had time to mess with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something I did wrong that is causing the Source switch to not work.

Here is a (Bad) picture of what the rear view camera looks like on the screen.


Here is a first pass at the dash kit around the stereo. I ended up moving it back a little so it is more flush with the sides. *One note: Because of how far back the stereo sits and this particular stereo having a flip down screen, it doesn't flip down. I thought about spacing it out so the front of the stereo sticks out more but I haven't needed the CD/DVD slot in 6 months so I am not sure if it worth the effort.


If you have any questions, please let me know.
 
Thanks pereze - your installation looks great!

One day I may want to do something like this and its nice to know how sweet it can look when you are done!

Edit: Corrected username
 
Pereze - looks great, thanks for sharing!

Can I ask what you did for speakers? Thinking of starting small and taking out the front speaker pair for a set of component speakers.
 
booper said:
Pereze - looks great, thanks for sharing!

Can I ask what you did for speakers? Thinking of starting small and taking out the front speaker pair for a set of component speakers.

I can't leave things alone, so I installed some 6.5 woofers in the doors and a tweeter in the A pillar. I have the S, which didn't have a tweeter but has the molding/holes for it in the A pillar..

The great thing about this car is there is a good bit of depth in the door. I used 3/4 MDF to make an adapter ring. Doing this gives me some extra depth and puts the speaker closer to the door card. You could probably by a speaker adapter and be fine with the depth. I first used a set of woofers from the Alpine SPX component set, but I just switched them out for a set of Dayton Audio DC160-4.

The A pillar has a safety attachment which is green and hooks onto the A pillar so that when the side impact air bags go off, the pillar doesn't become a weapon. If you reach in with some needle nose pliers, you can twist the green plastic attached to the a A pillar and get the pillar to release. The green thing goes in and then turns to "lock" in place. When you do this, you should replace the green thing (which are cheap) since it is now stretched. It will reattach fine, but its probably not worth the risk.

I am running my speakers active which means the crossover is in the back of the car (mine is actually built into the amp). You will need to run wire to the front tweeters since there isn't anything there to begin with (assuming you have the S). Since I was going for good enough, I ran speaker wire up to the deck, spliced into the speaker wire going to the door speakers and then used the factory wiring to get me into the door. Once in the door, I spliced into that wire to tie into the new speaker. It isn't the best way to do it, but it was simple and easily reversible while accomplishing my goal.

If I was going to add a component set, I would do something similar. I am not sure where I would place the crossovers, but I would probably keep them out of the door and just tap into the harness behind the radio for the door speakers and then run new wire to the tweeters.

Thanks
 
Any chance you have a parts list of everything you used? Only things that really bugs me about this car (have a 2015 but same packages) is the sound system and the mirror (will get a homelink to install),

Want to get the parts then find a shop to do the install. How much in all did it end up running you?
 
Nice installation, it looks stock... For most weekend car hackers, however, I don't think that messing with the "S" radio is even worth It. I don't see that - - in order to get a bit better sound, navigation, and possibly a bigger camera screen, we need to rip out a perfectly good working, competent unit... You may loose the steering wheel buttons, USB, camera, or the hands free telephone... I have the 2015 "S" and actually feel grateful that I got the goodies I got with that radio, AND that it tells me the names of the stations, songs, and artist on the radio!. I have never had that! PS - Also, I have been into home and car audio for many years, and think that for what it is, the stock radio is pretty good. Also, I have always thought that replacing the stock radio reduces the value of the car. Have fun experimenting with your cars guys!!
 
powersurge said:
For most weekend car hackers, however, I don't think that messing with the "S" radio is even worth It.
You know, you're probably correct. What I did with my i-MiEV (on lease) was add an amplifier and subwoofer to the stock radio. Be sure your amplifier has speaker-level inputs and a crossover.

When I added it to the stock radio (coincidentally the same manufacturer as the LEAF S's radio), it sounded great. The subwoofer setup allowed me to turn the bass all the way down to the main speakers, which allowed them to run louder without distortion. It wasn't "all bass" as you might imagine either. Granted, some adjustments had to be made on the amplifier.

Now that I have two kids (and sometimes two strollers, depending on where we're going), I'm going to wait to add the same setup in my LEAF. I need the trunk space more than the improved audio quality.

On the same vein, the audio quality from my iPod sounds very good hooked up through the USB port with the equalizer set to "Electronic". That equalizer preset seems to compensate nicely for the stock speakers and radio.
 
Yeah, agree with the previous 2 posts. I am wondering if anyone has had any luck adding component speakers up front in an S - maybe the best bang for the effort in a stereo upgrade for the S.
 
Back
Top