DISCLAIMER: Scionlife.com and ZanexGt do not take any responsibility in what you do to your car. This write-up is most likely filled with incorrect information. You could be voiding your warranty if not installed by a certified mechanic or dealership. It is quite possible that you can totally mess up your car by using this as a guide to install anything. That being said, let’s install some accessories!

Also, my picture quality is stodgy at best. My lighting conditions warranted the use of a flash but my camera didn’t auto flash. :/

Background:
I purchased a Magellan Roadmate 300 GPS and it came with a 12V power cord that plugs into a spare cigarette lighter outlet. In the xB, the cigarette lighter outlet is on the bottom of the center console. This means that the GPS’s power cord ran over the HVAC and radio controls. That was a total mess and the cord was always in my way. Additionally, I have an older RadioShack radar detector that I wanted to use but with only one power outlet in the xB, it was either the GPS, the radar detector, a splitter, or hard wire them both. Well, that choice was easy.

Materials:
12v accessories of your choice (I chose GPS and a Radar detector)
Auxillary Power Source Kit (Cigarette Lighter)
2->1 Cigarette lighter outlet splitter
Wire ties
12 gauge wire in the color of your choice
Dremel tool and/or X-acto Knife




Instructions:
1. Remove your center console using the instructions listed in this guide. Note that the linked guide is for removing your stereo and while you can remove your stereo to install your accessories, it’s not needed. So, just remove the center console.



2. After the center console is removed, you will want to remove the ‘oven’, which is the storage area just below the HVAC controls. To remove the over, first take out the ashtray by pulling out the ashtray and depressing the little piece of metal on the top of the ashtray. Next, pull gently and evenly on the ‘oven’ and it will come out. The oven is held in by rubber grommets and will come out easily. If you have any of the factory options like I did (fog lights/ Scion security), make sure to remove the connectors after you get the oven loose. Additionally, everyone will need to remove the connectors to the 12V cigarette lighter. Here is a picture with the oven removed and just the wires hanging out. In my hand are the cigarette lighter wires, the clear harness is from the fog lights, while the black harness is from the scion security.



3. Next, you will need to remove the gauge cluster from the top of the dash. The gauge cluster is easy to remove. First, look for the screw located in the center of the gauge cluster and remove this screw. It is my understanding that not all xB’s have this screw but mine did. If you don’t have the screw, don’t worry about it. Next, sit in the driver’s seat and pull gently on the gauge cluster housing until the plastic shroud is removed. Be careful not to damage any of the plastic retainers on the housing! Once the shroud is removed, there are 3 screws holding in the actual gauge cluster. Remove the screws and then set the cluster to the side. I never actually disconnected the gauge cluster because there was no need. Here is a pic of the gauge cluster pushed to the side. The cables have plenty of slack.



4. Once you get to this point, you’re ready to start installing your stuff. First, you want to locate the positive and negative cables leading to the factory cigarette lighter. Be sure that you choose the right wire for positive and negative respectively. The red/black wire is the ground and the full red wire is the power (12V+) wire. If in doubt, check with a multimeter. Once you’ve located your wires, you’ll want to open up your Auxillary power source and 2-1 splitter packages and put them together like the picture below. We’ll call this the ‘Contraption’.



Now that your center console is off and your ‘oven’ is out it should be easy to route the wires of your new Contraption through the drivers footwell in out where the wires to the factory cigarette lighter are located. Trim your Contraption wires to the desired length and either solder them into the cigarette lighter wires or do as I did, crimp them with one of the easy crimpers.

(Note* - You can also wire to the factory fuse box if you wish but I chose not to do it this way)

Now that everything is connected, route your wires neatly and place your Contraption up under the dash in the spot of your choosing. I chose a spot just above where your left foot would sit while driving. Also, make sure to use wire ties on the Contraption's wires so as not to have any wires dangling near your feet while driving!

Here’s a pic of my Contraption temporarily attached with a wire tie. You will want to permanently mount with a screw and nut.



By using the Contraption instead of hardwiring to the fuse box, I enabled myself to have two 12V cigarette outlets under the dash, hidden from site. This enables me to change out my 12V accessories more easily in the future if needed.

5. Now that the Contraption is in place, you’ll want to plug in one of your 12v accessories, reattach the battery cables, turn on your car, and see if it works! Here’s a pic during my test. Everything looks great!



6. The last thing to do is to shave the housings on both the dash as well as the gauge cluster shroud so that when everything is put back together, your accessory wires don’t get crimped. I chose to shave a small box area with my dremel tool and an x-acto knife. The area I chose was just to the left of the center retaining screw.
Here’s some pics of the end results:

First, the gauge cluster cover/shroud.



Second, the dash.



7. Lastly, put everything back together in reverse of the order you took it apart and enjoy!

Here are some pics of the final product.

Up close, look mom, the wires just disappear!



Daytime shot



Nighttime shot (you can see my new scanguage as well in this shot)

 

You'd better think about a car alarm all that stuff is out there in the open and probably worth close to $1000.

 

I know I may be a newb here, but recently I just hardwired my plug & play XM Roady XT. For much like the reasons above, I hate the look of messy wires. The install took probably 30 minutes max, the hardest part was finding a suitable ground.

The materials I needed:

- (1) 12v female adaptor (purchased from Circuit City for 6.99)
- (1) Add-A-Circuit fuse adaptor (purchased at AutoZone for 5.99)
- (2) Zip Ties.

Essentially all I did was use the Red wire from the female adaptor and crimp it to the Add-A-Circuit. I then piggy backed the Add-A-Circuit into the #23 fuse I believe which in the xA controls the 12v & Clock. The black wire was grounded to a metal crossmember, and the antenna & power cord were snaked through the center console and through the AC vent to provide a wonderfully clean install of my XM radio.

Unfortunately I am still at work, and could provide pictures of the finished product if the demand is there.

 

Thanks for the info on the #23 fuse. I'd like to see pics of your setup if you have them.

 

There are two open fuse spaces under the dash-left side behind the removeable cover piece. Check the bottom row. As you are looking directly at the fuse panel, the one on the left is "ignition switched" and the one on the right directly "unswitched" to the battery. Use a Littel Fuse Add-A-Circuit. There is no need to splice into the lighter hot lead. You can also put your Radar Detector leads between the foam seal and the windshield. It takes me less than 20 minutes to remove the upper dash.

 

6 one, half a dozen the other.

I thought about splicing into the fuse box but I wanted to leave my options open. By splicing into the leads on the cigarette lighter and adding a 2-1 splice, I have changed my vehicle to have 3 12v outlets.

I plan on changing the radar detector at some point to a more modern version (more effective) unit. I didn't want to keep splicing, re-splicing, changing, splicing again .... You get the idea. With the way I have it now, I just plug and play! Couldn't be easier.

Granted, you could wire off the fuse box, add a 12V outlet, then a 2-1 splitter and do the same but, I didn't do that.

Enjoy!

 

One of the bad things about using the cigarette lighter for audio devices is the ground loop whine. I have a Sirius Satellite receiver as well as several MP3 devices (iPod, Zune, Lyra).

When using the cigarette lighter for power I get an annoying whine. If I unplug the device and run on battery power, the whine is gone. Unfortunately this isnt an option for my Sirius receiver, since it doesn't have a battery option.

I'm going to try and use the add-a-circuit method and use an independent ground.

I'm using an Eclipse CD5425 with an aux-in adapter, as well as a direct connect to the factory steering controls. A pair of Directed 1200t amps power a SoundSplinter RLp-12 (900x1) and a pair of Image Dynamics Chameleon 6.5" components (250x2).

When playing CDs and listening to FM/AM there's no whine, so I'm pretty sure it's not a bad ground on the amps. The rear factory speakers are still connected and powered by the Eclipse head unit. There's no whine in them either on sources that aren't powered by the cigarette lighter.

Thanks guys for a good article. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have everything hardwired and the ground noise will be gone

 

Sounds like alternator hum to me... interference in the dc lines of the car. The stereo has enough filtering to clean it up, your other devices don't. If your power source is directly wired to the battery, the battery itself filters out that line noise and will give you clean DC.

 

sweet... very nice writeup

 

Great Write-up...

Question: I currently have now power to the cigarette lighter or my stereo... I must have blown the fuse (plugging in my daughters dvd player into the outlet). Any ideas on where to find the fuse? ... I looked and thought I tested all the ones I've found (driver's side fuses & fuses under the hood).

 

Since you are in CA, note that anything mounted to the windshield is illegal. They can/will write you up as "obstruction of view". Rather consider the "dash mat" which can be found at Target for $40, but can easily be bought at amazon.com for $15.

 

I've not had any problems with 'alternator hum'. The only changes I have made over 2 years is the upgrade of my GPS unit. Everything is still working great.

As for the fuse question above, I would double check the amount of current you are drawing through that one fuse, inspect the fuses again for damage, and let us know if that helps.

 

ok having a little trouble understanding this...
i plugged in the lighte adapter and located which wire was hot and which was ground. i crimped the hot into the add a fuse but what happens to the hot wire coming off the lighte adapter. whee does go? just gets grounded somewhere?

 

Thanks for the 411

 

could some one just put a 12v amplafirein their car (mounted under the seat) to run power cords?
I wanna hard wire my cell, ipod, and gps, into my car.

 

thanks for this writeup! very clean and very useful for any type of car.

 

are you able to reupload the pictures? they're not showing up anymore.