Pimp My Ride! Part II: Reverse & Speed Pulse Wires

The reverse wire (image below) is located below the doorsill panel on the passenger side. You may have to lift up some of the thick carpet to access the green wire. The light green wire is the one you want, not the dark green one.


Now that you have the sill kick panel, passenger seatbelt and rubber seal door trim, walk or crawl over to the driver's side of the car and remove the same three things. You have to do this in order to access the speed pulse sensor.

The speed pulse sensor wire tells the Pioneer hideaway unit that your car is in motion. Without this wire connected, you will not be able to use all of the features on the touch screen (i.e., side acceleration, angular velocity, etc.).

The little gizmo that Pioneer included to attach the hideaway unit's speed pulse wire to the car's speed pulse wire is pretty Mickey Mouse. Instead of using the supplied clamping mechanism, I just cut and stripped the car's wire and spliced the Pioneer wire to it. A quick squeeze on a crimp cap and no one is the wiser.

Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of the speed pulse wire. All you need to know is that the MINI's speed pulse wire is a baby poo brown/orange color. There will be a weird gaggle of wires in the sill that look this color. Any one of them will do. Use my method of strip, splice and crimp to attach the wire.