Buick stereo replacement help

[Punisher Bass]

I have a 98 Buick Park Avenue Ultra that while old is very near and dear to my heart. But recently I had an issue come up where if the stereo was in a bad mood and felt a slight bump it would shoot up to full volume and scare me to death.

I took it to a local stereo repair shop and without even looking at or listening to the problem the guy just said it was the optical encoder and ballparked me $150 to fix it.

So instead I picked up a salvage unit from a 2000 model, put it in, and my problems are now even worse. Turning the volume knob has no effect on how loud it is and using the controls on the steering wheel will change it but only for a brief moment before going back to where it was.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated because I don't know if I've done something wrong, there's another issue I'm missing, or if the salvage unit is just broken as well.

The unit is a Delco Electronics 09350424, if more info than that is required to help just me know.

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[Kickstand Premium Member]

I used to have Chevy Cobalt
On the Cobalt forum in the electronics section some of the guys with base models tried to put in the stereo's from the SS models
Turns out GM encodes the radios to the VIN of the car
Some of them were able to go into the dealership and get it re-coded but it didn't always work and it was expensive
Honestly, it might be cheaper just to pick up a cheap aftermarket unit and put it in

 

[Punisher Bass]

I don't know if GM was doing anything like that back in the 90's or not. If it was bound to my VIN I would think the "new" stereo wouldn't work at all. Far as I know GM only offered two stereos for this generation, one with a cd player and one without, my original has the cd player and so does this salvage unit. I also tried playing a cd and heard it spin a bit before refusing to play.

 

[Firewalker]

Yes even back then they were coded to the VIN either by having to recode the computer or by entering in a PIN on the faceplate of it. It can still work but not have anywhere near the full function it should without it being done with the recoding or pin being entered. Only way to find the pin is through a recode. Your best bet is to just go out and buy an aftermarket head unit and be done with it. Recoding is expensive and usually more then a aftermarket unit costs. Not that hard to install yourself either with the proper wiring harness and install kit.

 

[Punisher Bass]

That is not what I wanted to hear, I love this car but it's hard to justify spending $100-200 on a non critical item.

I forgot to mention that the salvage unit had what looks like an extension or some sort of adapter attached to it, something my harness didn't have. You can see several splices in it and I don't know if the cut wires were like that before or if it happened from the salvage yard just hacking it out with reckless abandon. The connector on the right is what was plugged into the backside.

 

[Punisher Bass]

I've done a bit of research into the issue, GM called it Theftlock, and it can get tripped by power getting cut off, even from just your battery going dead. Same goes for if you try swapping stereos around. My particular stereo has the Theftlock logo with a small single LED next to it that I believe will light up when it's been engaged, and/or it will display LOC on the screen. When it gets triggered it will render the entire stereo system inoperable.

I'm still thinking that's not my issue because the salvage stereo never displayed any such information and it did power on and work, just not like it should have. I've put my original unit back in for now and it's working just like before despite sitting without power for a few days.

I'm going by this article I found on Autoblog, https://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/15/how-to-unlock-a-chevrolet-theftlock-radio/

I'm willing to put the salvage one back in and play around to see if it is just locked up, but I'm starting to think it was already messed up before I got my hands on it. The splices in the remains of the old harness tell me at minimum someone had been in there before and possibly it was even original to the car.