Upgrade stock head units? unlocking?

[dcsleeper]

I'm thinking of buying an upgrade stock head unit for my cargo van which has the plainest radio ever.
I'm worrying about the TheftLock feature. Like when I buy a foreign head unit and plug it in, it will be locked. Since GM shut down the call in phone line for codes, I'm afraid I'll be SOL.
Do the Tech 2 knockoff's allow unlocking?
And I could use a link to know exactly what to buy.
TNKS

[Leeann_93]

Aftermarket head units won't be locked and your OEM headunit won't be locked if you've never set a code.

[SportsBoy]

Crutchfield.com has everything you need - just get it there and all the instructions and tech support come with it.

[maximus7001]

My van has the highest end factory stereo you could get in 1997. It is a tape deck head unit with the cd add on below and the rear seat volume controls and headphone jacks and the rear amp for the rear door subs. The cassette stopped ejecting and all the lights were burned out. I got another cassette head unit from a 98 Safari in the junkyard for $15. Exact same head unit and plugged right in and works good except the 98 has the cooling fan on the back. The original 1997 one had the spot for the fan but it was never there. I imagine the fan only comes on when a preset temperature is reached.

I could have just plugged in a used gm cd head unit instead but then I would have 2 cd slots and no cassette.

I have never encountered a gm deck that had the theftlock turned on. When I bought my van new the dealer told me it was a dumb thing to do so just to never arm it. My 1997 Honda has a cd that you put in the deck to unlock it after the battery goes dead. Without that cd the deck is forever a brick. I made a spare copy of the cd.

[Wiley]

WTF is a CD and how many mp3's does a cassette hold?


I was bummed when my stock head unit died, I loved that thing. I should have pulled 1 from a JY, no future risk of theft with that bad boy in the van.

[Leeann_93]

My last few Astros came with a CD headunit, but I bought a cassette headunit on eBay originally for my '99 because my aux box plugs into where the remote CD player would plug in. Then I moved it and the aux box to the white '02 because it came with a CD headunit, and then to the '05, for the same reason. The '00 came with a cassette headunit and remote CD player, the '02 Safari with a CD headunit, the '93 with a CD headunit and the '93 Bravada with a cassette headunit that I replaced with a Sony CD deck with an aux input on the front for the Sirius and the old 30-pin iPod/iPhone cable hardwired in the back.

I have a remote CD player here in the pile o'headunits behind me, along with a cassette headunit with some dead lights and a missing bottom tray (pretty sure that went to a member on here), a CD headunit, the CD headunit from my Jeep and a radio-only headunit an eBay seller sent by mistake when I bought a CD/Cassette headunit with RDS for my Jeep (he didn't want to pay the shipping to get it back and I wanted the cassette as Sirius connection backup). Oh, and there's a CD/Cassette headunit from my best friend's nephew's (now totalled) '03 Buick Century (it was left here when I helped install his aftermarket headunit).

Even with all of those spares available, if something happens to either the headunit or the aux box (I'm on the third box since '08 and they're generally NLA) in the '05, I'm going to get a double-din unit with CarPlay to replace it. There's an install kit from Metra to do that now, the receivers are coming way down in price and the features are awesome. My best friend was in town for the weekend and she has a Honda Accord with CarPlay - and it was awesome. It's pretty tempting.

[dcsleeper]

Well on your advice (experience of not having a coded radio) I went ahead and bought a head unit w/CD and a slave cassette w cable.
I'll put the CD head unit in my 2004 cargo that has just a RADIO. And then I'll put the slave cassette in my 2004 passenger with it's CD head unit. Then I can do mods to the cassette to provide Aux in. I have many MP# players and satellite radios that I can then connect. I'm building this thing as a highway hauler so I need good tunes availability.
And it was cheap and anti theft. I've hacked/modified and used many OEM stereos.