My aftermarket radio quit working so I replaced it with a OEM off eBay, I'm seIling the car. I'm having problems getting a borrowed tech2 scanner to relearn the VIN. I tried this
Here'* what I thought he was supposed to do with the Tech II tool based on answers from other techs online:



F0: Diagnostics



(vehicle year)



(body style)



(make)



(model)



F6: Body and Accessories



Entertainment



F5: Module Setup



F0: Radio



F0: VIN Relearn

but can't find VIN relearn as an option.
Is it somewhere else on a Buick?

OK, first of all, this is not your grandfather'* radio........by that I mean, GM radios, are no longer plug and play.......

Over the years, GM radios have changed.......

Before TheftLock, you would just take a radio out of one vehicle and into another......

Dealerships did this all the time.....customer comes in, likes a car, but doesn't like the radio....no problem, the dealer would take the radio the customer liked(different options), and install it into another car to get the sale....

Then came TheftLock......this would prevent radio theft....for amateurs, yes....for pro'* no.....and god forbid, your battery died or for some reason you had to disconnect it to make a repair or replace a battery....

Dealerships could still swap radios, to make a sale.....the radio display would say "LOC"......but all you had to do was press a certain combination of buttons to get a code....call a dedicated phone number, punch in that code, and then you would get another code that you could put into the radio using the radios buttons(usually the hr and min buttons).....

Turns out, a lot of people found out about that phone number, so around 2000-2001, a new TheftLock system was installed......you could switch radios, they would "LOC", but you could unlock then, with just a Tech II.......how many people have a $4K Tech II, that is constantly updated? Once again, people would have to go to a dealership to "unlock" their radios if they lost battery power or tried to install another GM radio with better options......If you were a "steady customer", the dealership would do it for nothing or at a reduced fee(only took a few minutes to do)....if you were Joe Blow off the street, you would be charged a half hour to an hour'* labor......

Then GM went to Global communications.....good news if your battery was disconnected, it no longer locked out......bad news, if you tried to replaced your radio, from another vehicle, you were **** out of luck because of the VIN discrepancy.....even Dealers couldn't do it.....so GM had to design a program to do this........

And if you did not know how to do this, correctly, you could screw up the radio.....

Now, I am not going to go into the lengthy procedure here, but I will give some highlights......

A Tech II, ALONE, can't change the VIN......you need a Tech II or MDI attached to the car, AND "it" has to be connected via cable/WiFi to the GM shop PC to TIS programming........

When you do this,auto headlights have to be shut off, and a backup battery system has to be attached to the battery(either a jumper box or GM'* special tool), so that when you turn on the vehicle(not running), you do not have to worry about a bad battery running down during programming......if you do this procedure without battery backup, and this happens(battery voltage gets too low, because the whole procedure takes more than a few minutes), you could screw up whatever module you are programming(PCM, ABS, RADIO, ect.)........

And you have to program the correct info into the TIS programming on the GM computer......

And no, not everyone in the shop is good at this....you ask specifically for their best guy....and if the SM says they are all good, tell him to cut the bullshit or you will go elsewhere......the best thing to do is look for the "Nerds" on the wall....most GM places will show the Techs on a wall, with all their certifications(not all do)....that makes it easier.......look for the one with the most certs....they are usually up to snuff on this stuff....

Wow.

How will we support these when the cars are classics?

The thing is my friend has unlocked many gm radio including a 06 Cadillac just 2 weeks ago, but this is his first Buick. I read that they removed the ability to unlock radios in new firmware update.



This part is where I got stumped for a little bit. The clone MDI2 that I bought included an emulated version of Tech2Win (Tech2 software replacement) but I never could find the option to reset the VIN as indicated in the above post, it simply was not there. The Tech2Win version included with the clone was NAO V33.004, which was released around 2013, about the same time that GM started pushing their GDS2 online subscription service. On a hunch, I searched for an older version of Tech2Win (that was in operation around 2008 when the above bulletin was released) & found NAO V30.004. After loading up the older .bin file in Tech2Win, the above procedure worked perfectly to clear the old VIN & grab the new VIN. It looks like the engineer'* fix to the problem was to completely remove the functionality from the Tech2 around 2013 & require a specialty programming event only available at the dealer.

I would have been money ahead to have the dealer do the programming ($120 for the clone MDI, $40 for the SPS programming from AC Delco) but now I have a way to do other functions, such as key fob programming.

Again, sorry to bring an old thread back, but I wanted to get this information out there for the next person that tries to use Tech2Win that is too new!

Quick update, I bought a VXDIAG VCX NANO and downgraded the firmware to V30.004. I now have a unlocked radio.

Did GM do this to prevent radio theft, or "create" more work for their Techs? The average person, or tech for that matter, does not have access to the equipment or programming....

I was friendly with a Tech at a Ford Dealership.......whenever I had a problem with a Ford vehicle, I would drive over there, on break or lunch time, and if it was something quick, or only he could do, he would do it for me....same with me, he would drive GM cars over, and I would help him out....I told my SM about this, and he was ok with it, because our Fords were fixed........one day, his SM saw me in the garage and asked him what I was doing there, and he told him about us......that was the end of that......even after my friend explained to him, all the GM cars that I had taken care of.....

Thanks for letting us know how it turned out!

People are dumb sometimes. Sounds like you had a good deal going.