I was just going off memory, not trying to start a war here.

 

Well, the whole point here is that it was obviously designed, by some engineer, for three screws. Rather or not someone actually did their job and put the damned screw in the hole is irrelevant.

 

And my whole point is I will get calls if someone buys something and asking me about why the car has 2 screws and not three. Will it be ok for the bezel to not have the second screw in bottom? Will the bezel fit correctly without it? Do you have a screw I can buy? The point is it did happen and that if someone is taking the car apart its no big deal to not have the third one. On our double din bezels with no ash tray we do not even use the two bottom screws when the bezel is put back into the car.

The reason I made the comment is that for some reason someone didnt do their job or whatever some do only have 2 of the three.
I didnt do this to pi$$ in your cheerios. Only to tell people that its common to not have the third one in the car. I have been called a few times in past about this and had a couple people ask me if I had a third screw they could buy.

I have also seen one or two times on a late 2003 C5's that there is no power, ground and accessory wire in passenger footwell like every other 1997-2003 has.

Anytime I can put info out here on things like this is just one more thing someone could read and not have to make a phone to call ask a question is all.

I reply to a lot of threads on different subject here on the forum not just to try and sell something like most vendors do but to contribute and give info, comments/kudos as a average Joe. After all we all read and enjoy these forums to learn why things are done to our cars and for reference on how to R and R something at home as a DIY guy.

Dennis

 

Here is the answer you are looking for:

The two different part number radios are externally identical and fully interchangeable as a whole assembly.

The difference lies inside in the main circuit board and CD player assembly. The internal parts are NOT interchangeable. The faceplate, however, with little modification IS interchangeable.

 

That may be true, I do believe it, however, both radios will work in any model year C5. I guess my post was somehow overlooked...

 

I saw your post, that is what I meant when I said the HUs are fully interchangeable as an assembly. As long as you don't look inside, for all intents and purposes they are the same.

I ran into this because I was going to mod my HU with an AUX input for my MP3 player. I found a tutorial online with detailed instructions on how to do the mod.

This is where is gets complicated and a little off topic, but I'll go on.

My car is a 2002. It came with a cassette player in the dash and a changer in the trunk. Just after purchasing the car I wanted in dash CD so I bought a CD head from a forum member and installed it. I also got a broken CD head from another forum member for spare parts (he tried to convert it to LED and blew out the lighting circuit). I installed the working CD head in the car and put the broken one on my spares shelf. At the time I had no knowledge that there were two internally different radios for different years.

So, In planning to do the AUX mod, and believing that the spare broken CD radio I had on my shelf was identical to the CD radio in my car I pulled the spare off the shelf and opened it up. What I saw exactly matched the pictures online in the tutorial. I was able to locate the wires to splice into to add the AUX jack. I was now ready to get the working CD radio out of the car and mod it.

I removed the working CD radio form the car, and upon opening it up I was a bit dismayed. The insides looked nothing like the other one. In fact, the wires I needed to splice into were non-existent, instead replaced with a ribbon cable. With no documentation on this type of radio it would be impossible to know which ribbons in the cable were what I needed to splice. Plus, splicing into a ribbon cable is not exactly easy or tidy.

I then noticed the faceplates looked identical. Maybe I could take my good faceplate and put it on the broken radio that the other guy attempted to convert to LED lights? If I could get that working, then I could install the AUX mod on the proper radio.

I swapped the faceplate on. Only one problem, the 2 connection blocks inside the radio are in a different place, and the wires for one of them wont reach. The other face plate had longer wires on it. So, I transferred the longer wires over. They fit into a tiny punch-down block, I just pulled them out and used tiny screwdrivers to push them back into place on the other one.

Now to go test the radio... still no lights on the face plate. Everything else works, but no lighting. Why....? Well, it turns out the lighting is driven over the cars communications BUS. whatever the guy did when he attempted to convert the radio over to LED lights, he completely blew out the lighting circuit on the main board. Even with a good faceplate there are no lights.

So what did I do? I put the good faceplate, now with the longer wires back on the other CD radio and verified the lights worked, which they did. I then spliced my AUX jack into the wires for the changer located in the dash right behind the radio. It works perfect. I used an old USB extension cable to connect the jack.. 4 wires and a shield. the USB plug lets you disconnect the jack in the event the interior needs to come apart.

Sorry for the long explanation, maybe it will help someone understand the differences between the two types of radios better. Hopefully it's not too confusing.

 

Ok, I hear ya...all I am pointing out is how this thread went off topic so quickly (like just about every thread lately). He was asking about the compatibility of the various part # radios produced over the C5's lifespan. Yet, someone took a wrong turn and turned the thread into a discussion about how many screws are necessary to hold the bezel on.... Maybe people's attention span suffers around the holidays?

 

Thanks! That's the info I was looking for.

 

I bought a stock radio/CD toput back in my '02. The guy I bought it from had a Pioneer in it.
On the back of the stock one, there are two sets of wire receptacles. I was able to find the connectors for the left side.
What are the ones on the right side for as you're looking at the radio from the back? I guess I'll need to find those connectors.