Folks, i'm a bit stumped with getting the P38 to accept my radio code.

The radios been showing code in for weeks since i had the battery off. Last week i tried to input the code, but I had misrememberd the code and entered it incorrectly. The radio then ended up stuck with the incorrect code on the screen. Tried everything and it wouldnt clear, so eventually read somewhere that removing fuse 1 and reinserting would clear the code. Did that and it changed to ----, which the internet suggests is wait mode. I faffed about a bit pressing buttons (the internet says press band and man together, which didnt seem to work, but eventually, it popped up CODEIN again. So i punched in what i thaught was the right code, and again, it was incorrect, and the wrong code was stuck on the screen again.

So i drove home got the right code, and yesterday morning i tried to reset it again. Pulled fuse 1, reinserted and now its back showing ----. Tried everything, no joy, just stuck on ----. Did 80odd miles yesterday in it, easily an hour and a half or more, with it sat showing ---- the whole time. Got in this morning, still showing ---- and still wont change back to CodeIn.

Any ideas? Driving it an hour to the mother in laws tomorrow and dont really fancy zero music the whole way!

I've only got one car with the original radio and that has been back to Pioneer and had the code removed so comes up with NO CODE when first switched on then simply works. I think I read somewhere that it has to be powered up for a couple of hours before the ---- changes to CODE but I could be wrong. It must be powered continuously so don't turn it off even if you stop for fuel.

maybe the continuous power up is whats required then.

I did two trips of 40-50minutes yesterday which i presumed would be enough, but clearly not!

Maybe i should just rip it out and fit a modern head unit, but having had a quick look behind it, the speaker connector isnt the usual 8pin one, its a wider 10 pin job. Need to find out whats going on there!

If its the Clarion head unit, press the 'band' button and it may then let you enter the code. I do recall there being an hour long wait thing too where it has to be powered up but its so long since I had a Clarion one I can't remember.

If you want to go aftermarket, look into the Ray Ambler antennuator circuits. Your car will likely have separate door amplifiers that don't work well being fed a speaker level signal from an aftermarket signal, and even a line-level signal isn't great because they work on a balanced input.

The extra two connections in the plug are for the sub. You've got the same L,R, F, R as on a standard 8 pin DIN but with two extra pins. Not sure if a 94 would have the door amps although the presence of the sub does suggest a high line system so maybe it does.

Sub makes sense :)

I stuck a meter across the pins, and it was just saying open circuit on all of the channels, so i imagine theres some sort of amplifier in between. If it was direct to a speaker driver, it should register a low resistance.

More digging required i guess. I have a spare Pioneer head unit with bluetooth i could fit. In the mean time, i think i'll whip the stock unit out and put it on the bench PSU for a few hours and see if that gets it unlocked!

I checked RAVE, if you have a sub you have amps in all the doors so would need to knock up the attenuators if you wanted to use a standard head unit. Or at least you would need to use the attenuators if you don't want it to overdrive the amps and distort horribly.

An hour on the bench PSU and sure enough CODE IN appeared.

Entered the code, and the powered it off and put it back in the car. CODE IN appeared immediately and now its working again :)

I'll need to have a think and decide wether i want to go down the aftermarket/attenuator route, or just leave it be. I might have a fiddle with my spare head unit and some resistors and see what we can achieve.

Or just do the line in mod on the one you have. Then you can either plug an external source in or plug in a £5 Bluetooth module and use it with your phone.