Jburcher82

2006 HHR, stock everything - tho fully loaded LT version.

Basically radio is always off, no ability to power on fully it seems, no buttons work when pressed - however, for these 3 specific buttons

1) "i" (top left circle button) - tapping displays time.
2) "^ EJECT" - tapping displays 'No Disk Inserted' & time.
3) also tapping the clock button displays time.
- in adenddum, u CAN put a cd in it takes it, spins it, then stops. No display for the cd/radio ever comes up. Still no buttons work except for the above 3. Then, however, 'eject' will eject the cd.

No other buttons work whatsoever, ever. Thes above 3 that do, work predictably the same always. Happened after a dead battery storage for months of the vehicle. Radio was 100% normal before the storage.

Any ideas - comments - suggestions - anyone come across this?
Please help me! Lol. But seriously I've considered an aftermarket, but the radio looks decent stock and did well pre-storage. Aftermarket radio of 130$ cost over 500 to install with all the add on wiring. So thought I'd try this instead first!

Jburcher82

If any additional information is needed to guide a response, ask for it, I'll check this daily for feedback. Just want a stereo to listen too

843de

It's entirely possible that months of zero voltage have tripped the head unit's anti-theft feature causing it to "think" that it has been installed in another vehicle.

This will require a trip to your dealer so they can connect a Tech II up to your HHR and try to "pair" the head unit up with your vehicle's VIN.

Once the head unit knows it's home, for the lack of a better explanation, it should work fine.

And because the battery was dead for an extended period, plan on springing for a new one. Dead batteries will slowly kill themselves through sulfation between the plates, meaning they might hold a charge briefly, but they're not long for this world.

Jburcher82

This was my initial thoughts as well. And yes, battery has been replaced.

My concern with that, was after scouring the forums - HHR n most gm head units show "LOCKED" if they do trip in theft deferent mode, mine never displays this :/. But I'll bring her to a dealer see what they can do. I'm sure that be a hundo lol. Thanks. I'll post back after done.

843de

Most dealers charge $50-$60 to hook up a Tech II and do any programming or pairing, heck they might even surprise you and do it for free.

oldracer

I have a Pioneer aftermarket head unit and in the few times I have disconnected the battery the head unit reset back to factory original settings. That sort of surprised me as I thought they had some ROM that held settings but all units are different it seems.

Grizzly old man

It's my understanding that the radio has a PROM {Programmable Read Only Memory} chip that can be flashed with the scanner mentioned above.

When I was having my stereo problems way back when I joined this forum I had my stock stereo out of the car for close to 6 months. It took me that long to figure out that my real problem was the speakers were not working right all the time.

I bought two other HHR stereos to put in the car but my local dealer could not get either of them to work in the car. I was using an old Clarion AM/FM/CD player in the mean time.

When I contacted GM about it I was told that the dealer should be able to flash any of the radios from another HHR or Cobalt or even some Saturn's and make it work in my HHR.

I tired this several times at the cost of $75.00 each try.

Finally one day I just put the original radio back in and it worked fine with the new speakers, and still is.

I don't know what's going on with your stereo but I sure hope your dealer has at least one guy who knows how to use the Tech II scanner thingy. Mine does not.