After calling Metra yesterday about the "put 12 v accessory back into the car on A6" and being told "you don't need that, the directions are wrong", I put everything in today, and the radio worked right off the bat, and the chimes worked... But I could not get the Axxess configured. It saw the radio, but not the vehicle.

So another call to Metra, and after waiting 20+ minutes for someone to answer, I tell the "tech" that I had the power, ground, and signal wire hooked up. He asked how I was connecting the wires, I said that they were soldered and had shrink tubing over everything and still no luck. He asked like I was bothering him and walked me through the reprogramming again, and duh, like it is hard to reset it and then press the volume up button.. Anyway, the guy I talked to basically said "Well, we've testing that with 40 Grand Prixs, so we know it works. It must be something with your wiring." No other help, no "lets try to figure this out..." It was somewhat rude.

So I mentioned to him that I called in yesterday and was told to not worry about sending 12 v back into the car. The guy says (with attitude), "Well, that's your problem." I said to him, "No, that is THE problem, not MY problem." He didn't get it, and I didn't want to get into how he was acting rude. I just said that the person I talked to yesterday told me not to do it and that there is a gap in their internal support system. He said that the other tech should never have said that and that the reason that you are sending 12 v back INTO the car, is that you are feeding 12 v in to the wire that ends up going into the steering wheel controls themselves since there used to be power provided by the factory wiring harness.

OK, makes sense.

So it really takes doing 4 connections. Black for ground, Red for 12V power, Orange/Green (in the case of the Grand Prixs) to the dark blue of the car's harness A7 for signal, and then run a 12V line to the Violet A6 of the car's harness and you are in business.

So it is working anyway!