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A few weeks ago, I purchased a 2016 Pioneer 700-4. I took it home the day I bought it but I wanted a winch and a roof. The dealer had the winch but had to order the roof and the installation kit. The salesman told me that they could install it in about 3 hours but I did not want to pay the extra money. I asked if it was difficult to install and he said it should not be a problem.
A week later, I picked up all three items and rushed home to check them out. Thanks to this forum, I found the directions for the install. I read them and I thought it was straightforward but would take some time.
I spent about onE and a half hours getting all the hardware on and moved on to the electrical section. When I got to page 15 step 21, things went sideways.
The instructions say to “Remove the 2 pin fan connector from its anchor and disconnect it.” Next, they say to “Connect the winch sub harness between the two halves of the fan connector.” The problem I had was the connectors did not match up. I was sure I was looking in the correct spot because there is a picture with the location and I traced the wires to the fan.
So, I called the dealer and asked them what to do. They told me there is a connector under the hood that it will fit. After some searching, I did indeed find one that fit and I thought I was in the clear. It took another couple of hours to get the rest of the lines run and connected. Once everything was tight, I turned the key one and plugged in the remote. Clicked the switch and…… absolutely nothing.
I‘m no electrician so at this point I was scared. I double checked all the connections and went over the instructions again. Nothing obvious to me. My initial thoughts were a bad contactor, a bad remote or was I supposed to get an in-cab switch with the winch and that was somehow causing my issues. I thought about that last one only because the salesman mentioned it and several articles online mentioned the extra switch when installing warn winches.
After hours online and talking to people at work, I got the multi-meter out and started checking voltage. Every place I thought I should have voltage I did. I checked the resistance in the remote to see if there was a short in it but that was good. I finally asked a friend at work from the maintenance department to take a look for me.
We tracked the issue down to the contactor not getting a signal from the remote. Because I didn’t have a strong understanding of vehicle electrical systems, I missed the fact that one of two things happened. Either Honda supplied me with the incorrect sub-harness for my Pioneer, or the sub-harness was wired incorrectly.
The connector that the sub-harness fit was to the cigarette lighter. I didn’t think this was a problem because it was key on hot. The harness had two wires with a third spliced in to one of the legs. Turns out that the spliced wire in the harness was supposed to be hot to give power to the remote. In the cigarette lighter circuit the hot and neutral were opposite of what they needed to be in the sub-harness. To fix this I had to take the harness apart, remove the spliced in wire and connect the two pieces back together. Then cut the other wire and put the splice on that side. Gave it a test and now everything works as it should.
What makes me mad is the MAIN reason I bought a winch from Honda was that it should have been a plug and play deal. The other reason was that I could wrap the cost into the financing. I could have bought an after-market winch and kit for far less money.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Does anyone know if I received the wrong harness or if it was wired incorrectly?
Thanks in advance for any answers you may have.
I hope this post helps anyone having the same issue.
-16HP700-4Blue
A week later, I picked up all three items and rushed home to check them out. Thanks to this forum, I found the directions for the install. I read them and I thought it was straightforward but would take some time.
I spent about onE and a half hours getting all the hardware on and moved on to the electrical section. When I got to page 15 step 21, things went sideways.
The instructions say to “Remove the 2 pin fan connector from its anchor and disconnect it.” Next, they say to “Connect the winch sub harness between the two halves of the fan connector.” The problem I had was the connectors did not match up. I was sure I was looking in the correct spot because there is a picture with the location and I traced the wires to the fan.
So, I called the dealer and asked them what to do. They told me there is a connector under the hood that it will fit. After some searching, I did indeed find one that fit and I thought I was in the clear. It took another couple of hours to get the rest of the lines run and connected. Once everything was tight, I turned the key one and plugged in the remote. Clicked the switch and…… absolutely nothing.
I‘m no electrician so at this point I was scared. I double checked all the connections and went over the instructions again. Nothing obvious to me. My initial thoughts were a bad contactor, a bad remote or was I supposed to get an in-cab switch with the winch and that was somehow causing my issues. I thought about that last one only because the salesman mentioned it and several articles online mentioned the extra switch when installing warn winches.
After hours online and talking to people at work, I got the multi-meter out and started checking voltage. Every place I thought I should have voltage I did. I checked the resistance in the remote to see if there was a short in it but that was good. I finally asked a friend at work from the maintenance department to take a look for me.
We tracked the issue down to the contactor not getting a signal from the remote. Because I didn’t have a strong understanding of vehicle electrical systems, I missed the fact that one of two things happened. Either Honda supplied me with the incorrect sub-harness for my Pioneer, or the sub-harness was wired incorrectly.
The connector that the sub-harness fit was to the cigarette lighter. I didn’t think this was a problem because it was key on hot. The harness had two wires with a third spliced in to one of the legs. Turns out that the spliced wire in the harness was supposed to be hot to give power to the remote. In the cigarette lighter circuit the hot and neutral were opposite of what they needed to be in the sub-harness. To fix this I had to take the harness apart, remove the spliced in wire and connect the two pieces back together. Then cut the other wire and put the splice on that side. Gave it a test and now everything works as it should.
What makes me mad is the MAIN reason I bought a winch from Honda was that it should have been a plug and play deal. The other reason was that I could wrap the cost into the financing. I could have bought an after-market winch and kit for far less money.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Does anyone know if I received the wrong harness or if it was wired incorrectly?
Thanks in advance for any answers you may have.
I hope this post helps anyone having the same issue.
-16HP700-4Blue
