I took off the panel under the dash to get a look at things under there and I noticed this loose wire fell out. It was probably from the owner before me as I have only had this car (1988 IROC) for a year or so. My radio has not worked since I got the car and I am thinking this wire might be why. Anyone got any idea what to do with it? It is yellow coming out and then ends brown/dark tan.

 

Where is the wire coming from?
Do you have an alarm? If so, does the alarm have a trunk release button?

I have a similar wire from my hatch release on my early 90s alarm.

 

Could be connected to anything, or nothing at all. You have to start taking things apart and looking to be sure of anything

 

That appears to NOT be a factory wire. Is it hot at any time? Is it grounded?

 

Looks like typical PO-related hackjob SODOMY to me.

Follow it to its source. That's all you can do. Nobody out here is going to be able to read some PO's distant past "mind" (I use the word loosely) and just tell, oh that's the wire that hooked the doubletalk generator to the blast furnace and provided for the defibrillator to download the malware into the shifter. Yeah right. We're supposed to know that.

 

The center console is pretty easy to pull. Trace to its source. The factory radio wiring is bundled into 4 separate connectors. That is certainly a DIY spade connector.