OK, I might figure this out by accident but I thought I'd pop a post in this area where I've never tread...

I have the factory radio with CD and tape. The tape deck is in the center console and its input is the "aux" button select on the head unit.

So, since I never ever listen to tapes, I thought I'd just hack the lines coming from the tape deck harness. I had a buddy at the dealership give me the schematic and I cut the 3 lines and hooked up my iPod.

Nada.

Problem is, the head unit won't even switch to the aux input because it's not sensing the tape deck there. OK, go get the tape deck and plug the harness back in.

Nada.

OK, still won't switch to the aux input so I go dig and find a tape. Egad.

Tape spins up, head unit "sees" the deck, and my iPod muzak is coming through loud and clear. Bingo.

OK, so now, how do I hack the system so that I don't have to have a tape in the deck on infinite repeat just to listen to my iPod? I guess I could just take a cassette and cut the tape out so it would spin infinitely with no autoreverse or anything, nut that seems kinda silly.

The remaining wires in the harness are:

Vehicle speed signal (dk grn / wht) ??? oh, speed sensitive volume....duh
Battery positive voltage (orn)
Ground (blk)
Instrument panel lamp supply voltage (gry)
radio on signal (pnk)

Could it be something as simple as tying two of these together? Anyone know what signal is sent when the tape seats in the transport?

I don't like this auto-priority thing. I wish the doggone button was a button and you could just punch it and really get the aux in. You know, analog!

Thanks in advance!

Easy option http://www.installer.com/ipod/ipodtahoe.html. I plan on getting this for my 2002.

Keith

Alpine also makes an ipod hook up which i think you may be able to hook up to a stock deck

Did you try switching to AUX with the IPOD playing? How did you plug into the IPOD to get the output?

Couple of things come to mind. The head unit probably needs to see a signal on the aux input line to switch to it. This is what happens when a tape is playing. If you didn't have the IPOD playing, then the head unit would not have seen a signal.

Other idea. If you hooked up to the headphone jack on the IPOD, you may not have have the volume loud enough on the IPOD to create enough signal for the head unit to recognize the input.