I recently purchased the factory switching box to enable the auxillary jack in my 2008 Mazda 3, but when I installed it and pressed the media button and tried to cycle through to get AUX to show up on the screen, it did not. My 6 CD changer keeps giving me a Check CD error message, so getting the switchbox was the cheaper alternative to replacing the cd player. It seemed pretty simple to install... did I do something wrong?

Help! =) =)

 

Do you have SAT radio as well? You only need the switchbox if you want to have both the ACI and SAT and want them both to work at the same time.

Assuming you have both I'd start ruling things out.
-disconnect the switchbox and connect the SAT. Work?
-disconnect the SAT and connect the ACI. Work?
-reconnect the switchbox (confirm everything's connected properly of course) and see if everything works.

What exactly was wrong with the HU before that you bought the switchbox to stave off replacing the HU? That could be the root of your problem.

 

The car was SAT ready when I bought it, however, I am not interested in paying for that service. Also, the car's 6 cd changer did not work. From what the various audio places we spoke to, it was going to cost upwards of $400 to get it repaired or to buy a new one. I continued to get the "check CD" error... apparently that's a common problem with the mazda 6 cd radios.

Sooo, I figured that I could just use my phone to play music with the AUX port. But, there is a sticker near the input that reads:

"Due to the installation of the satellite radio or ipod adapter on this vehicle, the auxilary jack has been disconnected. To reconnect the auxilary jack, installation of switch box part number TD13-79-CFZ or C9F1-V6-261 is required."

We then bought the switchbox, installed it, and noticed when I hit the media button on my HU, AUX was not displayed on the screen. I'm not really sure what to do now. Do you have a phone number of someone my father can call to get further help with this? He's more knowledgeable about car radios than I am.

 

Gotcha. When you installed the switchbox did you just plug it into the back of the HU and plug the SAT into the switchbox? Did you plug the ACI into the switchbox?

So here's the deal with the switchbox. Mazda offered a number of accessories for the HU all of which used the same port on the back of the HU. That meant that while they offered many options you could only have one at a time. Then in '07 they finally added a factory auxiliary input but kept it using the same port. For the many people who used satellite radio or the ipod module this was quite annoying and Mazda released the switchbox. This allowed you to plug in the ACI (Auxiliary Console Input) and one of the other things (sirius, ipod, phatbox, etc.).

When they installed the SAT in your car without the switchbox they simply unplugged the ACI from the back of the HU and plug the SAT wiring in. Generally the ACI cable ends up tucked behind a panel or tied off to another wire to keep it from banging around.

So basically assuming that there's nothing wrong with your car/wiring if you don't want the SAT at all you only needed to unplug the SAT and plug in the ACI. If you want both then you do indeed need the switchbox, but both SAT and ACI need to be plugged into the switchbox for both to operate normally.

Let me know if that helps, or if you have other questions. Hopefully this will get things working for you.

 

Oh, side note. A new HU from the dealer does run in the $400+ range. That said if you want a working CD changer you can usually find used HU's on the various forums for much less. I've seen some people give them away to clear closet space. Generally an older HU runs around $50-75 on most forums.

If you were wanting to spend the sticker price then you could put that money into an aftermarket touchscreen NAV unit (which also has an input).