I've been trying to diagnose the issue. Disconnected the relay to bypass the parking brake as it was not working anyways. Still no difference.
Disconnected the axxess aswc completely and still no difference...i'm thinking that the problem is actually in the metra kit??? Or maybe a fuse or something??? Any ideas.

 

Fuse check time?

 

Ok took it out for a drive to O'Reillys to see if the the guy there had any input and the the volume cut off when i'm driving and came back on when idling???? How does the stereo or metra kit know when the vehicle is moving. Will check fuses but i figured if it was a fuse the radio would not work at all...

 

So i've checked all the fuses.

They all look good. Investigated my clicking sound and its coming from the white lever that switches the air temp under the dash. It's moving up and down. I guess i need to resolder the climate controls. I suspected i would need to do this anyways because i already has to turn the temp control *** past the coldest setting to switch from hot to cold.

Could this have anything to do with the volume switching off when driving???

 

This is a pretty good one. Let's see what we can come up with.

Do you have the CAN wires connected to the kit? If so, the clicking sound might be from the speed pulse output of the kit, which is located on pin 5 of the large 10-way connector on the Axxess box (pin 5 is the leftmost pin on the bottom row). Are you using that?

Is the radio's mute wire (usually brown) connected to anything? Maybe the speed pulse wire?

 

I dont have navigation, so i left the speed Pulse wire disconnected! The mute button from the stereo is not connected and taped up as i did not see where to connect it to the metra!

 

If i can remember correctly the only wires of the aswc i have connected are the red, black, the white green to pin 1n and i connected pin 1p to ground. Everything else is tapped up!

 

Is anything else connected to the radio? I would disconnect everything other than battery, ground, ignition, and speakers.

If the problem has gone away (it should), reconnect anything else one at a time until the problem reappears.

 

I know i've been puting that off since i soldered everything i will have to do this tomorrow. If that does not work i will have to see if metra will send me another axxess box...

 

OK i'm finally home so i can give some more info more easily. Anyways. Everything that is connected to my stereo is as follows:
back up camera
ASWC
Metra kit
Mic
usb cable
av cable
antenna

Other questions that i have:
1. Did i connect the rca cables correctly? I connected the positive to the center most wire and the negatives to the outermost wire or the wire that wraps around the inner wire . I ended up with 4 rca connecting into the rca outs of the headunit.
2. Is there supposed to be a black/white wire on the metra that is a amp ground?...did not have this on mine.
3. I read in another thread that i need to run rca's to the amp or something. Did not quite understand exactly why but figure i should ask...
4. My steering wheel mute button does not completely mute the volume. I still hear a littel sound coming through????

 

Did you start off with a Bose system? How about something messed up with the Audio Pilot system? I believe the Audio Pilot microphone feeds right into the Bose amp.

Does the problem occur only when you're moving? How about when you rev the engine in park/neutral?

But even if you get it to work...get rid of the Bose amp and speakers! They are most definitely the weakest link.

 

I have the bose...

My symptoms = the volume shuts off when moving, when the tires move either forward or backward and the volume returns when i stop * it does not happen when i rev the engine

I actually just got off the phone with the tech at crutchfield and they thought the same thing. I disconnected the audio pilot microphone and i still had the same symptom
The tech said he will call metra tomorrow, i see what they say.

The crutchfield guys also had me disassemble my rca jacks and plug into the wire harness...yeah it sounds like crap now, its all distorted and volume gets way to high...+1 for the rx8forum, i definitely will be going back to rca!

 

The Metra interface (the one that comes with the install kit) really has nothing to do with volume at all. It only manages the climate controls, the display, and the hazard button. You could run the stereo without the Metra interface connected at all.

Perhaps something is shorting out when you move, or there's something in the receiver (motion sensing?), or connected to the receiver, that's cutting the volume. (mute wire, etc). This doesn't really sound the same but in my last car, the mute wire was cut but not taped and would brush against a ground point randomly and mute the volume. A smack on the side would fix it until it drove me crazy enough tape it.

Oh, and with regard to the mute button not muting the volume entirely, this is usually by design - called "attenuation" rather than mute. Sometimes you push once to attenuate, and a 2nd time to mute. This all depends on the design of the head-unit.

And while I'm tossing thoughts around....Any Bluetooth device paired?

 

Thanks for the info JohnnyG, and i have paired my iphone4 via Bluetooth. Incoming and outgoing calls too will work fine when the car is not moving but when i move the volume is cut the same, i don't lose the call or my music does'nt stop palying just mutes.
I do have the mute wire taped up really good, i wish that was my issue
Tonight i'm going to disconnect everything and see what happens. I will also plug each speaker in one at a time to see if i have a bad speaker or something.

 

Try un-pairing your phone? Just trying to think of anything that can detect motion! Does the MUTE indicator on the HU go on?

 

Ok tried unpairing...no love

Oh another question i connected both the power antenna (blue wire) and the amp turn on (blue white wire) from the metra to the the blue white wire (system control terminal of the power amp or auto antenna relay control terminal) of the head unit. Is that ok...do i need to connect the power antenna wire? Does our car have a power antenna?

 

Actually, I don't think either of those blue wires are necessary. In fact, I'll bet that's where your problem lies. I really haven't seen anything that states for certain what those wires do on the amp end of the harness and the Mazda wiring diagram gives no clues.

 

They go to the yellow white and pink black wires of the oem harness. Do you guys know what those wires go to???

 

h = ant, cont
j = amp, cont

 

All I know is that on the Mazda wiring diagram, the Y/W wire appears to be + and the P/B appears to be -

 

Ok i found my problem. The big black wire that feeds into the top left of the oem harness to pin B was the culprit. I don't know if it had a bad connection or what, but i had the headunit connected and palying sound and was placing it back into the dash when the volume cut off. I isolated the problem to the wire going into pin B of the oem harness by moving each wire until the unit came back on...seems to be working fine now. I can ove foward and backward with no muting!!! We will see if this last

 

Pin 1W, I think you mean? That's ground...should have been more than muting...should have been shutting off completely. Weird.

 

Ok short update and another question.
Tonight i went ahead and hooked both the blue and blue white wire together with the blue white from the headunit harness like it was and boom volume cut off when moving basically the symptoms returned.
So the blue wire or the power antenna wire is the culprit, just like JohnnyG figured.
DON'T CONNECT THE BLUE WIRE FROM THE METRA!!! Probably a no brainer for all you guys.
Oh and my last question...do you lose the ambient temperature with the metra kit? Mine is not showing up now???? I thought it was before...

Thanks for all your help and walking me through this whole process!!!

 

This is good to know! I put most of my harness together last week and "re-purposed" those L and L/W wires of the Metra to the pins needed for the ASWC interface. Started wondering how wise that was but now I know I can leave it be. I'm ditching the Bose amp and speakers anyway.

 

Ok so another problem i'm having. After plugging the ac/heather control interface back into the car, the ac is not cold at all. It's so freaking hot. So i pulled it off and tried to solder the 3 joints that usually crack on the temp control button that did not fix the problem, so i bought a remanufactured ac/heather control from Mazda and that still did not fix the problem.
When i look under the dash at the actuator that opens the doors according to your temp setting it just pulsates and does not move up to the up position.
I've checked all the fuses and the relays in the engine bay as well as the kick panel in the cabin.
Anyone have any ideas whats going on? Is my problem the axxess box?
The mazda parts guy was telling me that the actuator could be the problem but i'm no too sure. He says that he rarely sees any issues with that part.