1993 100: need to obtain radio code

[Kneale Brownson]

My brother's ex brother-in-law, who's been a friend since way before my
brother and his first wife parted, is the shop foreman for the local
Audi/VW dealership and previously was the main Audi mechanic.  He told me
last summer that Audi changed its information service within the last year
and he now has to have both a computer and telephone connection with some
technician to get radio codes for the older cars.   And he needs both the
data off the tag on the radio and the VIN of the original installation to
get the code.   He was getting me the code for one of our V8s, which he did
for free.  The dealership here does not charge for this information. It's
about the only policy they have that's reasonable.   For newer cars, they
have a clerk who can access the info from her computer.  But for the older
models, they have to go through this more detailed process now.  When I
asked about getting the code, they first directed me to the clerk, who
tried to go through her usual procedure for getting that information.   She
got nowhere, so the foreman got it for me.
 
At 08:54 PM 1/27/2005 -0500, Taka Mizutani wrote:
>Actually, this is not true, Kneale. There is a way too look up a radio
>code that is not associated with a particular VIN.
>
>I went through this process recently when I sold my OEM radio from the
>200 to another lister- I did not have the car with me, just the radio,
>and no VIN. He had his car. We went to the service counter, explained
>that the code was needed, they went in the back, came back a little
>while later with the code. He had called in advance to ask about this
>before coming, though.
>
>Obviously, given the right motivation, there is no need for a dealer
>to have to hook your car up to a computer to generate the radio code
>(which is what a couple other dealers told me), nor do they need your
>VIN- all they need is the radio.
>
>I suspect that this is a ploy in order to keep illegitimate
>individuals from obtaining the code for stolen radios when in fact it
>is no more difficult to get the code now as it was a few years ago. Or
>maybe simply a ploy to extract more money from each customer.
>
>This is one annoyance that I'm truly glad to be rid of.
>