The radio, blue and me and the car are all intrinsically linked, It may be removing the radio to replace it with something non-OEM, leaves you with parts of the Blue and me system non-functional.

For example, the steering wheel controls work to activate parts of the radio and parts of blue and me, Blue and me can access the USB port and feeds information to the radio, the radio controls what information to ask blue and me to provide, such as streaming songs off a phone or USB stick.