All right, pretty simple problem. I've seen other vehicles have this problem also. It’s probably something simple (I hope).

Installed an aftermarket cd player in my winter beater.
Cd player and radio, all options of player work well.

I set all of my presets, turn the car off, remove key from ignition.

Turn car on again and all preset / time information is lost.

What causes this problem? My brother’s winter beater has this same problem.

Does the ignition switch have to be wired hot into the fuse box or what?

I figure there are a lot of people on here and hopefully someone will know how to fix this problem.

 

u need a 12v constant wire. its red.......should have came with you radio

 

This is for my 86 Pick-Up winter beater.

The power wire is ran directly into the fuse box. I wired it into the "Radio Fuse".
Is the radio circuit only closed when the ignition switch circuit is closed (key is turned)?

Do i need to hook it up to a different fuse, such as say the lights or something that is always hot?

There is the yellow wire which i beleive is running to the fuse box, and the red wire that is ran to the ignition switch.

 

the red power wire should be hooked up to a consatant 12v, your yellow should be a switched power,use a voltmeter and check the power, read the manual it will tell u what wire has to be constant to keep settings, and the other one for switch on

 

thats wrong actually yellow is constant 12v and holds ur memory like ur clock your presets etc, the red wire is a switched 12v it should only have power when the key is on and not when the key is off

 

What he said. To the OP, if you only have one power wire hooked up to a switched power source then that's why you lose the presets. You should have a yellow wire hooked up to constant(ie always hot) power, and the red wire hooked up to switched power so the radio turns on with the ignition.

 

yellow usually on a aftermarket deck is for constant power but the red will be for accessory. The red wire will make the info stay in the deck like clock/presets. check your connections from the wire harness to the radio harness. it could also be that one of the stock wirings could be shot so you might have to run a new wire from the fuse box or the amp.

 

According to the Crutchfiled instructions, run the red wire (switched lead) to the right side blade of the windshield wiper fuse. That's what I did when I installed my head unit this week and it's perfect. Yes, it does matter which side you put it on. Make sure it's on the right side. The current runs from the left to the right across the fuse and if you put it on the left blade, your radio will burn out before the fuse does if anything were to happen.
The yellow lead is constant like the others said.

 

The Red wire and the yellow wire could be mixed up. Same thing happened in my 88 cavy. Everything worked perfect but it wouldn't save any of my presets. All becasue i had the red were the yellow should of been and the yellow were the red should have been. haha if thats not confusing but i think you will understand! :-)