I bought and installed a Pioneer AVH-P3100DVD. The posts here about the unit helped but there were some questions that were left unanswered. I did all kinds of searches on the web to get as much information as possible but had a difficult time putting it together and some of it was conflicting. So I am posting here and hope others will add everything I have learned and know about the unit including were to get it, how to install it, tricks, hacks, bypasses and how to operate it. I hope the PC artists here will also post some background we can all use on this unit.

I will ad photos, update and edit as I remember and learn new things.

 

I bought the unit online from Audio Video Dimension. The price was as good as I could find $309.95 and their warranty was better than most. They called me next day to confirm the order and ask if I had any questions or needed something included with the order that I forgot to get. The unit arrived three days after purchased. The unit came very well packed, in a sealed box and brand new. It also works very well from the get go.

I bought the installation equipment from Crutchfield and they were very good to deal with also. here is what I bought for the installation.

12040CR10 Chrysler Antenna Adapter Motorola M to OEM antenna F

120705520 Ford Wire Harness receiver, 2003-up

120955812 Ford/Lincoln/Mercury Kit Late Models Dash Install Kit

They included:

0000190139 FORD FULL SIZE PICKUP Installation Guide

000SRSAIR Airbag Fact Sheet Crutchfield Crutchfield Air Bag Fact Sheet

I have to inform anyone that is interested in installing this unit that it was real easy and took me all of about a couple of hours while watching TV.

The Antenna adapter was unnecessary. The factory unit fit the factory antenna of my Ford F-150 XLT perfectly.

The wire harness came with very easy to read instructions. The wire colors of the unit matched the harness wire color coding perfectly also so no sweat there. The unit has the most important wires marked with a tag for easy ID.

I had to drill a couple of new holes on the dash mount in order to use four screws on the unit. The back of the unit has a drilled and threaded hole to put the rubber thing-a-mabob on the back of the factory unit on it. However the factory unit has a soldered bolt on it and the rubber piece is a female and the unit needs a male threaded piece. So I am going to try and find some kind of threaded bolt I can take the head off of and use it to mount the rubber piece. The unit sits very stable on the dash without it but I think it would add some more support to the back. Any suggestions on this would be appreciated.

The dash can be removed by prying it loose starting from below and working up. There is a post here with a very good explanation of it and the Instructions from Crutchfield has detail instructions with pictures for the Ford F-150. I disconnected the air bag light cable and all the air condition heating cables in order to have easy access to the area.

The screws that came with the unit for mounting are rather short for the thick plastic dash mount but I managed to get it on. I would have preferred to screw the mounting bolts in further for better support.

I didn not get any of the additional accessories for it but as I get them I will post the instructions also. I hope other do the same here.

 

The unit working really good and I like it very much. I am very happy with my purchase. I played with it a while and I learned a few things and also have some questions regarding its operation for those that have one already installed.

I played some music from my phone Micro SD card by using an iogear USB Micro SC reader that I have. The Micro SD card is 4GB. The unit found my music in a nano second in all 43 folders and played them with no problems. I read somewhere were someone complained about the same unit taking for ever to find and play songs on their USB drive. It may be that the Micro SD is faster or maybe the USB reader I am using is very fast also but my unit found and played my songs withing a fraction of a second.

The CDs played very well and some of the tags came through eventhough not the album art. I will have to play with that some more.

I tried one DVD and while I got it to read I do not have the Green Brake Wire attached to anything. When the unit gave me the error screen I temporarily grounded the Green Brake Wire and the DVD played fine. As soon as I removed the brake wire the unit turned the video off but the sound continued playing. I am assuming that the unit was sending the video to the external video device. That would allow the back monitors that I plan on installing later to be viewed while killing the video to the front.

I have a question here for those that know about the bypass switch. I got mine to play my DVDs by only grounding the Green Wire. However, I keep reading how you need to put together a switch in order to play it or use a relay. I got the switch and relay from Radio Shack but do I really need it? Are some units different or is grounding the Green Wire a bad thing health wise for the unit? Can grounding the Green Wire and not using a switch ruin the unit in time?

I also would like to disable the demo part because it keeps coming on by itself when I try to turn the unit off. Does any one know how to disable the demo? Update: Hold the MUTE button for a few seconds and there will be a beep. After that the Demo will be dissabled and won't come up again.

And is there a quick way to turn the unit off? I kept looking but I really couldn't turn the unit off completely.

 

Nice post Henry, but this kind of write up has already been done about 20 times already. Some even have pictures. Glad the install worked out for you. I'm surprised to hear the mounting bolt on the back of your factory head unit was soldered in though, as mine was an 05, and it was just screwed in. When I upgraded to an alpine, all I had to do was unscrew it from the stock HU, and move it to the new radio. Saved me from having to install a restraining strap behind it, which can be a pain.

As for the reason the demo keeps coming on after you've switched off the unit, sounds like the accessory wire might be loose. Check the connections on the harness.

 

A relay wired according to Low_e_Red will solve the bypass. It worked on my 4100.

The demo mode, press where it says demo and then off.

To turn the unit off all together (not sure why) press and hold the source button.

 

Thanks. The reason I started a new thread is because I searched this forum and found only one thread that mentioned the Pioneer AVH-P3001DVD specifically. Yes, he has very good pictures in that thread and I really appreciate that he has the same year and model F-150 as me so I could see exactly how it looks after installation. The rest of the threads were titled "need help with new head unit", help newbie question" and other non specific thread. They each mention a particular problem but none of them get into the specifics of this particular unit in any depth. For those that purchase this unit it would be nice to come to one thread and find the answers to any questions they might have before and after purchasing the unit.

For instance, if I had known that the rear bolt is soldered and the unit does not bring a new one then I would have bought that ahead of time instead of having to remove the unit again to install it once I can find a replacement bolt. If I had known ahead of time that the unit is compatible with the antena connection on the 2005-2007 Ford F-150 I would not have bought an adapter as recommended by Crutchfield. If had known that some of the threads on the unit will not match the in dash install kit I would have had my drill ready instead of having to stop what I was doing, go to the shed and get my drill and find a matching bit. If I had known exactly how to prepare the DVD lockout bypass I would have had it prepared ahead of time instead of now having to first find out exactly how to do it and what items to purchase.

Just trying to make it easier for folks to find answers on this forum.

 

Fort those that may come up with this problem. I tried several ways of installing the DVD green wire. I finally decided to just attach it to the parking brake as the manufacturer instructs until I can find a good alternative. But when I finnaly got it attached to the Ebrake positive the unit would not give me a picture. I tried playing with the settings but it did not help. I knew there was nothing wrong with the monitor since I could see the movie playing when I was in the options page. But when I tried to go to the full screen all I got was a blank screen with sound. I thought maybe I did something to the unit playing around with the green wire. But I figured it must be software related.

I finally decided to just wipe the unit to its original condition so I disconnected the negative wire from my battery and got me a drink of water. After a while I came back and connected the negative wire on the battery and the unit was working fine again.

 

I have the 3100, and I am finishing up the install of it now. I did the switch method to get the dvd to play (get a switch, run the green line to it, then to ground). Seems to work fine. I bought the radio from Crutchfield ($449), HOWEVER they also have discounts off the HD Radio receivers and the bluetooth unit if you buy together. So for about $550 I got HU w/ install kit, HD, and BT. Not bad.

I have two issues at the moment that I am trying to button up. First off my Bluetooth is acting a little flakey when paring. Not sure how to fix that one. My other issue is with the reverse function. I bought a cheap $50 camera online, but for the life of me I haven't found out where to run the reverse sensor from the head unit.

 

Which bypass did you go with... the TR-7? Mine came with pretty good instructions, plus a link to several help videos on youtube. As for wiring a cutoff switch in case it was ever inspected by mechanics or god forbid the cops, that was as simple as putting a switch in series on the brake wire between the bypass and the head unit, and then mounting it someplace it was easy to reach but didn't stick out.

 

I haven't bought a bypass yet. I have looked at the ones on line and also found schematics for making an automatic bypass. I am going to post that also on here as soon as I have the time to downsize the pictures and load them into photobucket. I am also thinking of some type of switch that will put everything the way its supposed to be in case the cops come checking. I figure if I get a three way switch where one side I can have the ground running to the green ebrake wire and the other side I can have the green wire running to the ebrake like its supposed to I can just flip the switch and put it back to the ebrake in case a cop wants to check it out.

I know the instructions say to attach the Violet/White wire to the one where the voltage changes when the vehicle is placed into (R) reverse. But I don't know where to find that wire though nor what color it is going to be. Maybe one of the experts here can tell us where to find that wire and what color it is.

 

i installed my 3100 last week and am thinking of removing it and selling .. I cant stand the 24 hour time.. and trying to play dvds has een a pain.. all i want to do is play them and granted i havent used the owners manual it seams confusing to use, i push the play pause button and it pauses i seam to have a hard tiome getting to the main menu to just paly movie.

as for the e brake i just bought a 2 prong switch and ran the green wire to one side and a wire from teh other prong to a ground. i mounted teh swithch under teh dash in the brackets stock hole left of the steering wheel it fit just fine and with 2 toggles of teh switch teh DVD is enabled. my stock radio pin on the back side of teh stock radio had a bolt to large to fit the Pioneer so i left it out for now. I used a Schoce ?? install kit and it went in quick..with no problems..

I wish i would have went with the kenwood but figures i would save some money..24 hr closk What the heck..

 

Uce teh spHe11 chek...

I called pioneer a month ago before I ordered my 4100 about the military time clock and she said the engineers are working on a firmware update to resolve the issue.

To play a DVD all I have to do is insert it and hit the OK button to confirm it is in park with the e-brake engaged, lol. No need to hit buttons or flip switches.

As for the bypass, use Low_e_Red's method with a relay, works flawlessly.

 

i installed my 3100 last week and am thinking of removing it and selling .. I cant stand the 24 hour time.. and trying to play dvds has seen a pain.. all i want to do is play them and granted i haven't used the owners manual it seams confusing to use, i push the play pause button and it pauses i seam to have a hard time getting to the main menu to just play movie.

as for the e brake i just bought a 2 prong switch and ran the green wire to one side and a wire from the other prong to a ground. i mounted the switch under the dash in the brackets stock hole left of the steering wheel it fit just fine and with 2 toggles of the switch the DVD is enabled. my stock radio pin on the back side of the stock radio had a bolt to large to fit the Pioneer so i left it out for now. I used a Schosce ?? install kit and it went in quick..with no problems..

I wish i would have went with the kenwood but figures i would save some money..24 hr clock What the heck..


Sorry man I don't have spell check at work and for some reason i always type the (teh) it is a bad habit,.

i tried a different DVD and still the same issue i have to search forward to a 2ndchapter and then back it up..

 

Finally got the reverse camera working, and guess what, it's not hard. OK, there is one catch.

So after trying to track down that elusive reverse wire to line into the head unit, I decided to forge ahead today, and see if maybe I could put a switch in instead. I got it all wired up, and for the first time I could finally see a picture on my 3100.

Then something funny happened. The wire to the switch came off, and there was still a picture. Huh. After much experimentation I found out you don't need the wire! Once you have the camera installed, and have the input set in the settings, when you go out to the main source selection menu, there should be a Rev Cam button next to the ESC button. Push that, and the video will come on. Here is the trick, to turn it off, touch the screen, go back to the source selection and hit Rev Cam again. If you don't the camera will keep popping up.

The trade off is that it doesn't come on automatically when I go into reverse, but it's only two button pushes away, and I can run it when I am driving as a rearview (not that I or your local officials would approve).

So, I just got a cheap $50 camera kit off the net, ran a long power lead with with video cable to the hard unit, and grounded the camera in the back. Hooked it up, and it all works now.

I should mention that I did install the video relay bypass just before this. Just in case it did matter in the install.

 

Anyone have a pic of this unit installed in their F150 (04-08)??

Also, any word on the updated firmware for the military time clock issue? I didn't see anything on Google or Pioneer's website.