Installing a new stereo in my 2002 Volvo S60
This weekend I installed a new stereo in my Volvo. I thought I’d post a write-up for those curious about the process. For everyone else, I translated the article into Swedish, then back into English. This is the result. (I’ve bolded my favorite bits.)
I begin by saying that the stereo in Volvo sounded good. Really good. By far the best factory stereo in any car I’ve owned. The problem was that it would only take CDs. Audio CD. I know, right? This is the disadvantage of having an older car. The advantage is that the stock radio is not so rooted in the mad dash design that I can not replace it. To replace it I should.
So the plan was to just replace the head unit with one I could stick an SD card in and leave.
Meet the cast of characters (below). We have new tires on the left (Pioneer MVH-8200BT) dashboard panel strip at the top there, and the wiring harness to the right. 
The first step was to pull out the battery. So I popped the hood and … could not find it. A quick Google search said it was in the trunk so I opened the trunk and did not see it. It was found hidden under a plastic housing and a metal bracket bolted to the chassis. Some ratchets later, and I subjected the battery (bottom left) 
The first step was to remove the instrument panel. I used the instructions, nothing was too difficult in addition to the force required to remove the climate control panel. It was in the somewhat tight and the knurled grip fingers tore to pieces. Par for the course with this kind of work anyway. (A measure of how easily your stereo is to take away is the Count of cuts on your hands when finished.) A few steps and I had the stereo out. 
Note iPad on the driver’s seat - I used it to see instructions and Google things that I encountered problems. Was a brilliant addition to the process.
When Stereo was out, I study the old cable and went inside to combine the new and the old. This took about an hour to hook up correctly even if it was just matching colors and twisting.
Then I combined the new stereo, new dash piece and the old bracket from the old stereo in one piece ready for the car. Then brought it out to the car, coupled with some wires, and voila! 
I connected the battery and gave it a test listen. It did not sound good. By now I had expected to screw it back together and move on with my day, but no. Something must be done. And in the book of Angus, it is clear that if you try something and it does not work, not retreat, stepping up.
I thought that Volvo had a better stereo amplifier, so I called my brother to see if he had an extra amp sitting around. He did, apparently. He had my old one in his house. Huh. I thought I would amp the speakers, do some extra wiring and close it. No big. Small deviation.
So I gathered my things and drove out to Torbay with the dash still come apart.
On my brother’s house, I made a discovery. He had not one, but two of my old car subwoofers from the past. I thought that all this had been lost in a river. We checked the subwoofer for mold and found none.
Now if we go back to the book on Angus, you will find it to say that if you find a free subwoofer in the woods, and you are already connecting an amplifier, you might as well make a great sounding sandwich.
Here you can see the first bass and amp sitting in the grass on the right. I have other woofer in now, but I might switch back to this one because it has a nicer sound. 
It took about four hours of work to strip off, run and hide all the cables. Here is the amp wired loosely to a sound test. 
Nothing about this part was particularly noteworthy, except that the battery is the tribe actually did this to a shit-ton easier. Woo hoo! Normally you have to run a power cable through a firewall that has never as easy as it sounds.
The new tire, I found out, can play video. But to do so parking brake must be on. Not being a fan of stupid nanny-state “rules” I learned how to bypass it so I could watch the video when I fucking want. (Editor’s note: I don’t generally swear on this blog, but that happened in the translation so I’m leaving it.) Unfortunately, we misunderstood how it worked and the final solution did not work when we screwed it all back together. Damn.
Also, as I drove around after I could smell burning plastic. Not sure if it’s new desktop or massive amounts of cheap electrical tape behind the dashboard. Time will tell?
So in the end, the sound is better (subwoofer separation helped a lot,) the player, SD card and it looks funky. On the downside, I can not use the dial sound longer and the dash kit is off-color and a bit too long so it’s not all went together perfectly. (It was the only dash kit I could find.)
And finally, here is how it looks now.
Thank you for reading stupid from my face.
