Radio Light

traxion · January 12, 2004

The '2' and the'5' light bulb on my radio is out. Has anyone every replaced these bulbs. Or do I just have to have a new deck? Thanks in advance.

ness5575 · January 12, 2004

my "2" and "5" are also out!

the only lights i have left are the 1, 3, 4, 6. the tune buttons, seek, etc are all out.

as are the ac button and the outside air/inside air buttons.

the finish is wearing off my numbers on the radio as well. soon they will be all white and not have any of the dark grey left at all. guess i change the station a lot...

I am not real impressed with the quality of these particular parts...

sorry - i dont know of a fix for the radio lights.

seadoons · January 12, 2004

I don't think there is a way to change out just the bulbs. I have an '02 and have always wondered if the finish on the radio buttons would ever wear off...mine now have that real smooth plastic feel to them which is a sign of wear...they don't look/feel the way they did when the truck was new but they don't look bad yet either. Oh well.

2000 GMC · January 12, 2004

The eject, FM/AM and CD/AUX lights are out on my radio. I took it in 2 weeks ago for the CD player. I'm taking it back in for the lights now. I know it's no big deal but a while back I had a small water leak on my passenger side door that they said wasn't covered by the extended warranty. Lady gave me some attitude about it not being covered and they would have to charge me. Now it's my turn, I want a new stereo.

atomoverride · January 12, 2004

I dont know about GM radios but on a honda radio its possible to take it apart and replace the lights in there with some xenon, or blue, or even red lights the only downside is you have to do some soldering.

GnatGoSplat · January 12, 2004

You can always replace the bulbs!

They're probably soldered in, but you can buy replacement bulbs, maybe from Radio Shack. Parts Express also definitely has them.

I have some interior indicator bulbs that have burned out too, and happen to have a whole baggie full of white LEDs. It works great to replace the bulbs with LEDs with a few problems... LEDs are not direct drop-in because current limiting resistors need to be added (LEDs use hardly any power). The LEDs are also a pure (cool) white light. Although the indicators are a cool white color, this is accomplished either by a blue condom on the bulb, or blue paint on the inside behind the lettering. The solution to the prior is simply removing the blue condom. However, where there is blue paint, the resulting light will come out a light blue. I found it's very difficult to remove the light blue paint without accidentally removing some of the diffused translucent white paint behind the lettering. If you ever take apart a switch or the climate control assembly, you will see what I'm talking about with the blue paint.

RyanZ71 · January 12, 2004

The life of a LED bulb is supposed to be somewhere around 10 years CONSTANTLY ON. I'm a little ticked that these things are burning out so quickly. I've lost the inside/outside air lights on my climate control center.

traxion · January 12, 2004

Well it may just be as simple to get on ebay and get a radio. I dont want everything in the interior one color and the '2' and the '5' a different color. I guess if you took it to GM then they wouldnt mess w/ it. Thanks for all the advice. Appretiate it.

Musial-6 · January 12, 2004

I have a CD Player/Stereo selling right now. Check it out. It closes in an hour....lol.

Thought I would give a plug for myself.

The ID on Ebay is the same as this one.

c5vetteman · January 13, 2004

My "2" and "5" lights burned out also. I got the entire radio replaced under warranty. I also had the inside/outside air lights on my climate control center go out and the entire assembly got replaced under warranty. Luckily, I have a GMPP with $0 deductible that covered everything. All of this happened around 65K and 68K miles respectively.

cyclejerk · January 13, 2004

My A/C, & recirc lights were out. Went to Radio Shack as mentioned above and picked up some 12v bulbs, sorry I dont know the part #s, and replaced the burned out ones. They do need to be soldered so it was kinda a pain in the a$$. Anyway so far so good.

GnatGoSplat · January 13, 2004

The life of a LED bulb is supposed to be somewhere around 10 years CONSTANTLY ON. I'm a little ticked that these things are burning out so quickly. I've lost the inside/outside air lights on my climate control center.

Yes, that's because they're not LEDs.

GM doesn't use white LEDs. They cost a lot more than tiny bulbs.

sgiangregorio · January 13, 2004

This won't be much help, as I can't remember specifics, but I did replace lights in a stock stereo on a vehicle I had. If I recall correctly, once I got it out (had to unsolder it), I went to a radio shack and found a pretty close match. Soldered it in and viola!

RyanZ71 · January 14, 2004

Another STUPID done by our friends at GM. regular bulbs burn out eventually, they want us to go pay $130 for a new climate control center or radio when the bulbs burn out!?