F*%"^£$g Symphony!!

J

jcb

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Radio has finally popped its clogs.
volume alwasy went high on first start of the day, learnt to live with it.
now it has a complete minds of its own.
turn it down and it goes to maximum, turn it up and it goes up , and up and up to maximum!
short of driving round playing techno on full blast for the full Chav effect I am resorting to playing my iPod at very low volume and the radio at vHigh!

Its a 99 facelift with Concert radio/cassette and CD changer in the boot.

what are my options for OEM replacements? does the concert radio/CD player swap straight over
Anyone ever fixed one of these volume issues?
 
I have the very same problem in the S4 LOL. Drives me mad when the car is cold!!!!

I have the same head unit in the A6 though and it's as good as gold (same age even). Most odd.
 
There are 2 types fitted - either Panasonic or Blaupunkt, though externally they look the same.

The Blaupunkt versions don't appear to suffer the volume issues.
I use a very good guy to repair them, in the past 2 months, he's successfully repaired 9 units for me, he's really good. Turnaround time is 2 days.

You'll have to send your unit to me though, if you want a repair.
 
cost? what does he repair? some capacitor in the volume switch?
 
Its a chip that needs repair/changing its to do with the way it saves the volume information basicly the chip cannot be programmed any longer so resets to defaults. A new unit is available form ebay for around £90 IIRC plug abd play
 
just got one last week from stafford audi off ebay or ring 01785250444 delivered next day for £108.99, just needed vag com to turn on bose swapped straight in came with code. supposedly its fitted with a modded chip and came with an audi 2 year warranty. i'm well happy with it
 
They've really got a nerve haven't they?
How exactly did they explain the need for a modded chip?
Design flaw perhaps? In which case how on earth have they got the gaul to charge for a replacement unit when it should be free of charge on a recall?
 
I put the CD player type in mine. Its not a straight swap as you need to sort out the illumination which you can buy an adapter for or do the wireing yourself.

concert2.jpg
 
AndyMac said:
They've really got a nerve haven't they?
How exactly did they explain the need for a modded chip?
Design flaw perhaps? In which case how on earth have they got the gaul to charge for a replacement unit when it should be free of charge on a recall?
Click to expand...


the units are not made by audi but made for audi. yes i agree that it is a design fault but where do you draw the line at responsibility. mine lasted 10 years before it had the fault, what sort of warranty would you expect to have on a car, ford cd players pack in much sooner (lasers stop working) and they are £300. if you bought a light bulb and turned it on and off 10000 times and it stoped working would you say that its faulty or just reached the end of its life. if any part of a car goes faulty should all cars have a recall because they to might fail. next time a MAF,brake light switch or temp sender goes faulty try getting them as a recall and see how far you get and these are far more common failures. yes it shouldn't happen but it does and its annoying i agree but i think they would only recall anything on safety grounds or in the case of 1.8T ignition coils no action would cost them sales
 
mine is a 99, so it lasted about 7-8 years.
I think £90 is pretty good considering. if indeed it is a new unit or it is recon?
still like to know if I can upgrade to a CD player without a degree in electrical engineering
 
You're missing the point big time.
All the items you've listed as examples do NOT have a design flaw that has since been rectified, they just wear out. That's the difference. Coil packs were flawed, they issued a new design and provided replacement free of charge regardless of their age. Should be exactly the same with the flawed head units. Recalls are nothing to do with safety or the age of the vehicle, just recognition that there was a mistake that's now been rectified. The HU should outlive the vehicle.
 
AndyMac said:
Recalls are nothing to do with safety or the age of the vehicle,
Click to expand...


ever seen fight club?

recall only happen is A+B > C
C being the cost of the recall
A and B being legal suits, class actions and loss of sales.


anyway....back to my point, who here has wired in a concert CD player into a B5?
 
Erm lol yeah i have it all have give me to the weekend and ill find out where i got the cables etc.
 
nice one cheers.
don;t se ethe point in getting another tape player as I have no tapes!
 
me either i actually have not seen one for years now....
 
Mine has just started to do the MAX VOLUME thing over the last couple of days. ****** hell it gives me fright every time. Gonna wear some ear plugs just in case me thinks. Will speak to my mechanic and see what he can do:wacko:
 
audi upgrades
I just don;t touch mine anymore and use the ipod to control volume!!

have a nice new cubby in the back left now also (CD changer started ******* around so I took it out!)
 
Hmmm, I am interested in fitting a CD to my A4.

Also, is there an easy and clean way to run an MP3/Ipod/Blackberry through your sterio in an early A4 ?
 
will post a pic, but I have a tape to 3mm jack adaptor.
I ran the cable down behind the gearstick, up the back of the facia and in to the radio.

no cable s at all and the pod just sits in reach behind the gearstick.
just select "Tape" and shuffle
 
Maybe you dont mind sh*t quality music, but those tape things are awful. I guess its different person to person but i even find listening to the radio a bit crappy.

The best solution is to bin the hunk of a standard head unit and fit something half decent.

If you have full bose you can probably hack together a line in using the pre-out feeds to that, but its sketchy at best imo.

I know some people prefer the OE look, but personally, the OE look doesnt bother me, and i'd much rather my music sounded good than the dashboard looking flat. A bit of careful selection of headunit and you can find something that fits in just fine.
 
How can you tell if you've got the bose system in your car? Other than its probably louder lol :readit:

J
 
So... the CD changer in the back - what head-units can utilise it? (mine's an '00 facelift model)

I've got a Blaupunkt HU, and I've plugged the CD changer cable into the back of it (as the connector fits) but it doesn't work. So I'm just using my iPod that I've plugged in it's place.

Would be nice to have it working with my Blaupunkt (Munchen CD52) HU though...

Aragorn, I went for this HU for my old E30 BMW as it looked like it was meant to be there... and I've transferred it across all my (German) cars and it's looked good in all of them. Fits perfectly with the A4 dash as it's just black&white and has red illumination with it. Perfect!
 
Ha ha,
I do mind "****** quality music".
But when you have a 3" exhaust, 245 profile tyres and a fully polybushed car ....... picking up the whether the drummer has keys in his pocket on the soundtrack of whatever is playing is not an option.

and anyway, MP3 is a crap format and iPod's produce poor quality sound by comparison to other players or full CD versions.
If you really want high quality music don't listen to in a car.

my tape thing works just fine to drown out the road noise and full bore exhaust tone ;)
 
Lol fair enough, i just cant be doing with it. You turn up the music to drown out the car noise and then the music is just as annoying!

My head unit has MP3 playback built in from CD's and the music i "aquire" is generally all in high bitrate or high quality VBR MP3 which unless you're a full on audiophile with the best of kit is perceptually lossless anyway.

I normally get annoyed at the radio, because a decent tune will come on, you wind up the volume and then you can make out all the interference and nastyness thats coming over the signal.

Geeman: yer i fully agree its perfectly possible to get a decent aftermarket system that looks fine. Our head unit is a Pioneer P3630MP:
http://pioneer.vdlabs.ru/2002-2003/receiver/img/DEH-P3630MP.jpg

Only "bling" is the two round dials, the red illumination is a good match for the rest of the dash, and the white display is inoffensive.

Johnny: If its bose it should have bose stickers on the speaker grilles and an amp up the rear somewhere.
 
My A4 has the Audi Concert Bose stereo in it, and it is now doing the volume thing, try turning the knob and it goes to full or nothing. After reading this I am confused as to what is the best way to fix it. do you go for a replacement unit or get the chip fixed? If so please give me details of who to contact as I want to fix this asap.
Thanks
 
I have found a company called maple audio in Bath that can fix it. They replace a chip.
Waiting till after xmas to send it off to them.
 
The volume thing seems to be a common problem. My Concert stereo has a similar problem but it happens frequently during the winter from a cold start. I've had no issues every other season. It hates the cold (to put it non-technically).
 
It is a design flaw, and will get worse the more you adjust the centre knob. It starts on cold mornings then eventually, when it's completely run out of memory, will do it all the time. 10,000 adjustments of volume/bass/treble/fader etc in its lifetime and that's your lot. Bin it and get something of this century. If you want to keep everything looking stock then get a Becker GP.
 
Where do you get a Becker GP from and how much ? Do they fit in the original dash hole and are they compatible with the original Bose Amp and CD player, do they look the same as the original unit
 
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