How to Remove a Factory and Aftermarket Stereo from a Jeep

Applies to: JEEP CHEROKEE (1984-2007)

 

Jeep Cherokee (1984-2001); Jeep Liberty (2002-2007)

Pull Tip: Save the Dash and don’t cut the wiring harnesses, other people might want those parts. If the automatic gear shifter needs to be put into 1st gear to give you room to pull the dash, turn the key. If the key is missing, some vehicles have a hidden slot on the console near the shifter where you can insert a flathead screwdriver which will release the gear selector without having a key.

Estimated Pull Time: 15 minutes

Recommended Tools

  • Bring your Phillips head screwdriver to Pull-A-Part Phillips Head Screwdriver
  • image of needed tools wire cutters at Pull-A-Part Wire Cutters

Instructions

  • 1

    Start by removing the dashboard bezel or anything covering the stereo. Sometimes they are screwed in, clipped in, or both.

  • 2

    In some cases you might need to remove the cover around the steering column before the dash panel will come out.

  • 3

    Aftermarket stereos usually have clips on either side of the holder. Push those clips in and slide the stereo out. Or just unscrew the holder and remove as one unit. Factory Stereos are usually held in with a few crews to the left and right of the stereo.

  • 4

    Unplug the wiring harness by pushing in the harness tabs and disconnecting the harness rather than cutting it.

  • 5

    Unplug the antennae connection.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hey, guys. It's Matt with BleepinJeep.com. We're gonna do a DIY and drive tutorial from Pull-A-Part Used Auto Parts. Let's get started. Hey. Check that out. That's a tape player straight out of the 1990s. Some of you may be asking, what's a tape player? Some of you may be asking, what's a CD player? But anyway, I might want to rock that sucker. So let's go about getting that sucker out.

Now the first thing we need to do is pull the dash. But you got to remember, a lot of people might be looking for this dash. That's a valuable part. So we don't want to just rip it out. Let's go ahead and take the time to take it out properly. Some of them have clips that unclip. Some of them have screws. Some of them have both. In this case, we've got a couple screws. So anytime you go to pull a dash, look for screws first. If you don't see any, it's probably just clipped in. So there's two screws up here at the top. I'm just going to go ahead and take those out. And I believe there's two more screws down here somewhere. I'm gonna drop the steering wheel down as far as I can. Pull the face. Looks like somebody just installed that sucker right through the face. I see what they did. They mounted the holder right to the plastic piece. So in that case, what we need to do, there's two little tabs here on the side. So you can either use a screwdriver or your fingers and press those tabs in while you pull out. That will release the stereo from that backing. And we can slide it out. There we go.

Now if it has a connector, just go ahead and disconnect it at the connector so that you don't ruin the wires for somebody else who might want the wiring harness. Looks like this one we'll have to cut. So now just give that wire a little snip. And we've got our stereo. But what we want to do is also come back and grab this piece, because this is what holds the stereo in. So let's see if I can get that out of there. Perfect. Got it out. Now normally, that would be attached back here with some screws. Let me show you that. So let's pull the bezel out like we were gonna try to do in first place here. OK. There we go. Set that aside.

Now you can see where these holes are right here. This would normally be screwed in to there. So it just depends on how they install it. You might have to do it a little bit differently. Normally, you would take the dash off first. Then you would take these two screws out and be able to pull all this out together. All right. That last one was too easy. Let's try a different one. That one was a '95 Cherokee. This one is an '03 Liberty. So first thing I'm gonna do, turn the key, move this back so I got some room. OK. Now, I don't see any screws on here, so I'm assuming this just has some clips. Let's see if it'll pop off. Well, it almost did. Looks like there's one screw that I missed back in here. It's holding it up. There we go. Now, there is your heater control right there. So if you want to take that, you can just pop it off. And I'm just gonna unclip it, get it out of the way, because we don't need that.

So all we've got left is a couple of screws here. Looks like four screws, two on each side. Gonna pull these out. I should follow my own advice and hang onto these. You never know if you might need these, because you might lose the ones from your old vehicle. OK. Let's pull this sucker out. It's got the antenna for the radio. And then we've got two little clips. One, two. On those clips, there's just a little place where you push it in, and then they pull out. All right. There we go. We've got a stereo, factory stereo, out of an '03 Liberty. So just remember, guys, when you go to pull something like this out, it's easy just to start cutting away and hacking, pulling the dash apart. But remember, somebody else might want this wiring harness. Somebody else might want this HVAC control, or this face plate. So do them a favor and just put everything back. Make sure you don't tear it up for them.

All right, thanks for watching, guys. I hope you got a little something out of that. We'll see you in the next video.

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