psuter

Hi everybody

Today i payed the deposit for a 2007 suburban ltz which i will pick up next week in virginia and then ship it to switzerland (europe) to use it here..

I've already ordered a KPH speedometer so that's all taken care of.. now i would like to find out how i could enable the european frequencies on the radio.. the problem is that us radio stations are all on uneven frequencies like 101.3 and 101.5 and so on.. in europe we have lots of stations on even frequencies like 101.2 and 101.6

I recently test-drove another suburban here in Switzerland and amazingly the stock radio could tune to european frequencies as well.. i tried it out myself because i could not believe that this was possible.. The onwer told me that he let someone convert that radio.. so i guess there is probably a setting somewhere in a hidden place or maybe a gm dealer can do something with their diagnostics tool to change that?

Does anybody know how to enable those frequencies?

another thing he showed me was his european nav dvd he had in the car.. there really was a map of europe on his sat nav with all roads covered it seems.. does anyone have an idea where i can get that from? is there maybe a car from Opel or Saab that uses the same Nav DVD's as the Suburban and Tahoe do?

any help is appreciated.

cheers
Pascal

vrso2

why did u change speedometer ? Normally show both, MPH and KPH and all all other values can be changed in DIC settings.

psuter

yes it shows both kph and mph but mph is the main scale and i want kph to be the main scale as it is more detailed and has a mark for 50kph and 30kph which in europe are quite common speed limits. changing the speedometer scale is not required by law or anything, but I just prefer to have it this way..

psuter

so i've spent some time in the free section of the TIS where you can "Look Up Vehicle Calibrations" at no charge.. and i found out that there is an RPO code for "DVD Region 3 (NTSC); Europe Tuner Spec.; (RPO VFK)"

and this is what i currently have in the car (according to the RPO decoded from my vin): "DVD Region 1 (NTSC); North America/Domestic Tuner Spec.; (RPO VFF+U84)"

I have read in some posts about installing the 07 Nav in a Tahoe / Suburban without Nav that you need to configure it using the GM Tech2 and you need to enter some RPO codes.. is it possible that i could just bring my Suburban to a dealer here in Virginia and have him chagne the Configuration from VFF to VFK and i am all set? Anybody knows their way around the Tech2?

psuter

just a quick update in case someone else is trying the same thing as i did (bringing a suburban to europe)

i ended up swapping just the plastic cover with the scales and nubers on it on the speedometer and not the whole unit as the new unit needs to be programmed and a 2010 unit cannot be used in a 2007 model because the transmission has changed and therefore the gear indicator is not working properly.. but simply changing that plastic sheet worked perfect.. my main scale is now kph like it used to be on the previous generation that was still sold in europe..

the nav / radio could also be converted.. i brought it to a grage in Zurich called "Duttli" and they reprogrammed the radio and the navigation and even included a nav DVD for europe in the total price of CHF 550 which is a pretty good deal i think.. since i am still in the process of getting my suburban inspected i have only driven it a few kilometers on temporary license plates for now but the navigation really isn't the most shiny point of the suburban.. don't expect something like a tomtom, the nav really is quite slow, inaccurate in predicting arrival times and it talks way too much (kept telling me on every second highway exit i was passing that i should continue on the highway! (and we have a lot of exits in switzerland )

so i am now trying to get my rear view mirror turn signal lights disabled.. if anyone knows how to do that, please reply in my other pos here: https://chevroletforum.com/forum/tah...13/#post180730

cheers
pascal

vrso2

thx
my bro just bought 2009 lt and will shipp to Slovakia next week.
He got no NAVI, but only radio. I believe, that local electronics shop to change it.

psuter

in that case i'd suggest to simply swap the unit.. you don't lose so much by replacing the radio with a nice touchscreen radio.. if you have the factory nav it would be a pain to get all the stuff like the camera and such to work again.. that's why i chose to spend that money on the modification of the stock nav.

keep in mind though, if you remove the original radio you have to put some blackboxes in your dash to keep the chimes working and all the other stuff (like the rear ac remote and such) .. but they are available on the net so i think that's not such a big deal.

one tip for the shipment.. put a thick fome pad at the center of the front and rear bumpers to keep it from being scratched when they park the car too close to the container doors.. min was scratched really badly and you could see how the doors must have been rubbing that plastic out of shape during the whole sea trip.. nothing a bodyshop can't fix but it is annoying anyway..

so good luck
pascal

vrso2

thx for advice dude.

In radio case, there is no NAVI unit - no rear camera, no overhead unit. He loves the blue tooth, so he definitely keep that OEM radio. BTW, u could do same, than i did. I swapped my unit to Rosen OEM look radio. It's even better than OEM and looks almost the same. I was thinking about Pioneer, but that radio is not 100% plug & play, which Rosen is.
About shipping. U should claim damage in your shipper. I was selling cars over the seas for couple of years (2-3 containers a month) and what i learn is, that good shipper is worth a fortune Mine is one of them
Now i need to get small stuff, like braking pads, oil, tranny fluid, trany filter kit and etc to have no hassle getting it over seas and pay twice that much

psuter

yeah, i looked at the rosen too but didn't know if they really where any good or if it is just the same china crap like those other cheap feature-rich radios on ebay, so i decided to go with the conversion of the stock radio..

i think i should consider a rosen for my corvette c6 then.. i only have the radio in there and wouldn't mind to have a sat nav and bluetooth in the unit as well but the factory unit doesn't really convince me... so far i was considering a sony XVN-660 BT as it uses tomtom for navigation and i am really a fan of tomtom's road guidance..

as far as bluetooth is concerned.. i have the 2007 Suburban, so no bluetooth in my radio.. but since onstar is not working in europe, i replaced the onstar module with a "bluestar" module so i can now use my onstar controls, and microphone as a bluetooth handsfree kit.. the voice quality is really good and it integrates seamlessly into the whole onboard electronics.. the radio even shows the onstar icon when it mutes the music for my phone call .. i really love that box the only draw back is, it doesn't show caller id's and you have to use your phone to dial the number or live with the voice dial function of your phone..

cheers
Pascal

Linus

Could some nice person tell this Swedish dude what TIS is ?