I see where 00-01 was Bose, 02-05 stock head units were monsoon. I notice that my 00 has an AM FM button, while on 02-05 units just says band. The biggest dislike that I have with my 00 radio unit is if you, for example, program a radio station for 1-6 on FM1, you have to go over and hit the AM/FM button to get to the other 6 stationed programmed on FM2.

On the monsoon unit, if you hit the 1 button twice, will it cycle between FM1 and FM2 presets, or does it work the same way of having to hit the Band button first to go between FM1 FM2 and AM?

I take it the 00 radio harness will accept an 02-05 head unit.

From what I have gleaned from this site, the head unit does not care about Bose or Monsoon, they use the same head unit. As far as the 00-01 and 03-05, near as I can tell, the only difference is internal software (mainly XM capability and apparently also some features as you mention).

Don't be so sure. From talking to various radio repair people, the two are NOT plug and play. This may or may not be true though (I found other things they didn't know). It also may be that since you need to program the TheftLock, the newer radios might be programmed to disallow the older VIN and therefore not work. It may be possible to disable the TheftLock and avoid this - I don't know.

As far as I know, I haven't seen anyone put an 03-05 in a 00-01.

Can you be more specific on what you mean by this. Are you talking about the ability to plug an '02 - '05 radio into your car and have it mate and work correctly or is there something else to this?

Yes, I'm wondering if I can plug an '02-05 unit into my 00 and have it work fine without any modification.

I'm also wondering how the station presets work on the 02-05 units.

There should not be a problem installing an '02 or newer radio into your car, understanding however that it will need to be unlocked after doing so. IIRC, GM only lists three radio part numbers from '00 - '03. AM/FM/Cassette ('00-'01 only), AM/FM/CD or AM/FM/CD/Cassette. Once you get into '04 and '05 you will see black versus gray buttons on many, but there should be no function incompatabilities. At the transition to XM availability, you will also notice the AM/FM button change to BAND as these will cycle through XM1 and XM2 (with a Digital Radio Receiver installed). Radios without a BAND button won't support XM, but should otherwise work in a non-XM environment.

If you had an SSEi, there may be one wire that would need to be disconnected so the radio didn't believe and amp was present. In later years, these were wired a little differently. With your SE, I don't believe there should be a problem.

As for the presets, I can't speak on those immediately. I converted to nav some time ago and don't recall. If I'm able to do any further research I'll post more later.

Thanks ddalder. Reason I ask is because many of the better condition oem radios on ebay are from 04 and 05 models.

By the way, what wire can I tap into/use for the remote turn on wire for the amplifier I will be adding later? I plan to hook up the rca outputs and remote turn on wires ahead of time when I put in my new oem unit, so when I get the amp in they'll be ready to go.

There is no need to add anything to the OEM unit. The output of the amp is selectable as line level or amplified.

What ddalder is referring to is the wire that selects line level or amplified output. If there is an amp present (as indicated by the wire ddalder mentioned above), the outputs from the OEM head unit are at line level.

All you would need is to add the appropriate RCA connectors to the wires in the car. They would then plug into your amp. Then the output from the amp would connect to the wires again.

Basically you would wire the amp in series with the head unit and the speakers, using the existing wire harness (but splicing into it).

I am in the middle of a similar installation.

I'm going to have to dig out some reference material to answer this. The dash / instrument panel are wired much differently in the 2000-01 than in 2002-05. On one hand this will make things easier. I'll try and get to my resources here in the next day or so, but I'm in PA right now and may not be able to access some information until I return to Canada.

If for some reason I forget (won't be home until later in the month), please either bump this thread or send me an PM reminder. I may need to send you a terminal for one of the connectors you'll need access to.

This thread may help:
http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...ic.php?t=92446