I changed out my radio head from an ebay purchase and needed the code. After looking through all the threads, I was frustrated in not being able to FIND the serial number on the radio to tell the nice lady at Jaguar what it was (she didn't know whether it was alpha-numeric or the number of digits required). However, when I went on to https://www.carstereocode.com, they even had a picture of where/what I was looking for (16 digit, started with an A). Paid with paypal and my life is good again. So if you need to find your serial number, check out their page. If you use 'em, it's $19. Worth it to me.

 

Welcome to the forum Jay48,

It is extremely unusual to have a coded radio fitted to a Jaguar outside Europe. I can only recall four reports on the forum.

Please follow this link New Member Area - Intro a MUST - Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum to the New Member Area - Intro a MUST forum and post some info about yourself and your vehicle for all members to see. In return you'll get a proper welcome and some useful advice about posting to the forum.

Graham

 

I bought 3 of them off ebay to replace what I thought was a dodgy original unit. Three of them (of the 4 I have right now...) required codes, the one that's in the car now doesn't, which is fine for me, since it is a pain to reenter the codes every time I reconnect the battery. And this is a US spec car, and all the radios were sourced from domestic sellers.

FWIW, all of the radios, when checked with the site above (I think I posted something on that a couple months ago...), were reported as having codes; I wrote them with permanent marker on the case so subsequent purchasers (I'm probably going to put them on ebay and recycle them) won't have to dig around.

FWIW, the serial number is on the bottom center of the case, and it's a 17-alphanumeric string (IIRC; may be wrong on the length...), but when you go to the site, there is a photo when it comes time to enter the serial to show you exactly where it is.