Level II, Sony XNV-770BT Installation

I just scored this unit on amazon for $750! Amazon has an awesome return policy I could not resist!

I think this unit has a good balance for what I need. I currently rely on my tomtom on my iphone 4 and this will be an easy transition. The price point, 5 second boot up, and simple interface pretty much sold me.

Quick question for you Sony Nav owners, are there any speed lockouts (locking input when in motion)? If so have you figured out a way to bypass it? That was one of the main reasons I didn't go for the OEM Toyota navigation option with my trim. Thanks for pointers and can't wait to get my new Sony unit!

I never hooked-up the speed input... hence, no lockout.

But search the XNV-770BT threads... LovingLife explains everything!

P.S. Hope you enjoy your unit... good price!

Thanks! I'm really excited! I did a bit more research and on the tacoma forums an installer simply grounded the green parking brake wire, no relay needed.

Is the speed wire required for better accuracy? Do you know where it's located? Also the reverse wire? I know it was mentioned but couldn't find it in detail (wire color / pin location).

Lovinglife saved me time listing the metra parts, so happy he documented everything. Not sure I like the non-texture of the metra dash kit, thinking of getting the Toyota oem dash instead but I saw gaps that needed to be covered looking at the kenwood installs. Anyone have the toyota oem dash (with matching texture) installed with the Sony?

I need a little help! My 770BT unit arrived from amazon and I have the Sony HU out and it does not power on

I have yellow, red, and black out of the sony harness connected directly to the factory harness via an adapter and checked both yellow and red with a multimeter and am getting power voltage via those wires. I also verified that the ground wire was actually grounded. I DID notice that there are two blue remote wires, one is the ANT remote and the other is the AMP remote hanging out of the harness. I did a couple of searches and someone said the remote AMP wire may be needed to get the HU to power up? For some reason that makes no sense to me. I'm starting to worried I may short or burn something up! Am I overlooking something to get the sony 770BT to just turn on?

I plan to add the JBL adapter AXXESS harness but want to make sure the Sony even works before I work all the other stuff. I'm worried I have a bad unit but lucky I ordered it from amazon.

Please help if you can! Thanks!!

No, do NOT connect any of the blue wires to a 12V source. These are indeed remote power ons. You are absolutely correct.

The unit must power up when the unit is grounded well (also the case), the yellow wire connected to constant 12V and the red wire to ACC on (12V when push button pressed once).

I always test this outside of the cars with a 12V external source (or wires to the 12V connector inside the car). For testing the red and yellow wires can be connected together. If the unit powers up immediately this way, then everything is fine with it and you must take care of getting the right harness adapter if needed.

I once had a double DIN device that did not power up. I found out later that an internal fuse got blown.

That's the clarification I needed, thanks robby3! I used a multimeter and verified the red wire would jump from 0 to a little over 12V when it pushed the power button on the prius. The yellow would always showing a constant 12V that is consistent to what you are saying. The ground was the same metal chassy connection that I hooked my multimeter up for testing.

I purchased this unit via amazon.com so I'll simply have them swap it for another one. Thanks again for your time!

Just giving an update on my experience with the Sony XNV-770BT. After a few months of use the Navigation unit started acting up and finally stopped working completely. Given that I've had a few other issues :

• No sound when unit turned on. Turning it off and on solves that
• Lost of last radio station being played when unit turned on
• Best Tuning Memory being turned on when I select list. This is annoying since it wipes out all my set radio stations
• Stuck in permanent night mode. After the nav gave out the dimmer stopped working, moving the unit between day and night mode

I shipped the entire unit out today for repairs. Sony does make it a bit difficult to send a unit in for repair as you seem to have to do it via phone. The phone people then want to try to walk you through all the problem solving steps once again. I tried doing it through there web site but that just tells you your eligible for a repair/exchange. I hope they do an exchange and the new one won't exhibit any of the issues I've seen.

I'm glad I keep the original stereo since I'm sure this will take a few weeks to get sorted out and I'd hate to be without any music in my car.

Thanks for the update on your Sony experience. I hope Sony is responsive and gets you up back up and running fast.

I was still within my 30 days, and ended up returning my Sony 770bt unit to amazon.com, it was DOA and was not comfortable exchanging it for another, even more glad I didn't.

I ended up finding a good deal on a used OEM navigation. It's not the best, and it's no garmin or tomtom like many of the people here on PC have posted, but with the OEM nav, I love the voice recognition, flawless bluetooth auto detection of music streaming, uploading contacts from my iphone 4, and just the overall aesthetics of the OEM look. The main harnesses were plug and play and I was able to directly connect to my JBL amp (needed for the OEM nav) without any aftermarket adapters. I still had to splice some wires, speed wire, mic, and reverse but was able to figure that out with the guy that sold the unit to me.

That's terrible! Another arrow in Sony's back--think Kurosawa's Ran

My unit loses the satellite from time to time... but a simple unplug/replug the TomTom module seems to always fix it.

Touchscreen sometimes ignores my "Touch." I tend to use the supplied Remote Commander.....

Again, I'm 95% happy with it... for the price, 100%.

To anyone who owns a 770BT or 660BT -- I am curious which steering wheel controls are accepted by this unit? The metra controller has plenty of buttons available. I'm trying to decide which ones can be made to work on my steering wheel.

Thanks!
Pete

(My goal: to avoid use of touch-screen controls as much as possible. Very distracting while driving! If necessary, I'll get the 660BT to have physical volume/mode knob/buttons...)

As recommended by LovingLife and several others, I got:

"Metra Axxess ASWC Universal Steering Wheel Control Interface (Black)"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039H2W66

"Metra 70-1761 Radio Wiring Harness For Toyota 87-Up Power 4 Speaker"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002BEQJ8

Sitting on the bookshelf... soon to be installed.

'Apologies for not having a definitive answer

Understood. SO... my real question is: given the ASWC, which has a LOT of controls available...

1) How many of those are understood by the Sony?
2) How many of the SWC's on the Prius can be replaced? (In my case, I have a base (+blu logic) 2011 II)

I assume the left-side buttons are easily replaced (vol +/-, mode, chan +/-).
Not obvious if any/all right-side buttons can be replaced (Trip, Dist, air recirc, temp +/-)

I just spoke with Metra. Unfortunately, according to their tech support, the right-side steering wheel buttons are on a completely different interface bus and are invisible to the Metra.

Can anyone confirm this? Quite sad if true. The climate console already has most of those buttons, so I was hoping to repurpose them! (Hmmm... I'll start a separate thread for this question.)

I may get a Sony 660BT unit to have convenient volume control, just so I can free up some steering wheel buttons for use with BT phone etc.

Right side S/W buttons were unaffected by the Sony.

So, alternative question...

Does the Sony obey S/W button(s) programmed for any of the BT Phone operations, e.g.

• PTT (push to talk)
• Off Hook
• On Hook

???
(If this works, then if I use physical buttons/dials for volume, I can repurpose the S/W volume switches to run the phone.)

The nav should support both TomTom, and Garmin (and iGo too) - it's just software.......... gpsunderground is your friend

NOTE: I just spoke with Crutchfield tech support about a problem I'm having with my new Sony 660BT HU.

Symptom: sound dropouts for a second or so at intermittent intervals, 10 sec to 5 minutes.

His diagnosis: bad ground. On the Prius, do not ground directly to frame. ONLY use the black ground wire in the harness.

I'm about to find out if removing the ground connect recommended here will solve this.

how did the install go ?

any pics ?

Hi you guys should look in to JVC AWX-840 no buttons removable screen.
Here are pics of my install. Total cost with me installing it sirius tunner and JVC adapter $584. HU, wire harness and dash kit $504 with CA tax free ship.
http://photobucket.com/OGHUGO-JVC

hows the install for this ? hows the tom tom nav compared to the kenwood's garmin ?