Hi I have recently purchased my a3 8l 2003 and the person who I bought it off has installed a cheap Sony head unit which is awful and will not allow me to adjust bass treble etc... He also gave me the original concert head unit but I cannot get it to power up when it's plugged in. I have checked the fuses in the unit and the car both are fine. The guy in halfords seems to think that if the keys were pushed in too far upon removal then the concert may now be completely useless... Any help would be appreciated
AndyMac
Retired from service
You're asking Halfords for their advice? You'd probably get better advice from your postman!
No you can't damage the internal circuitry of the HU with the release keys unless you've shoved them into the controls on the front panel!!! You can damage the release clips, but that's all. The release keys don't go anywhere near the internal electronics.
How was the Sony wired into the car? There is no switched live (ignition on) on your car's stereo harness, so they would have had to pick this up from somewhere. Have you connected the CANBUS harness as this is the connection that tells the HU when to turn on?
Chances are the previuos owner butchered the wiring, or the CANBUS connector is shoved back in the dash somewhere. It won't power up without this connected. It is a black 20 pin mini ISO plug shown below:
No you can't damage the internal circuitry of the HU with the release keys unless you've shoved them into the controls on the front panel!!! You can damage the release clips, but that's all. The release keys don't go anywhere near the internal electronics.
How was the Sony wired into the car? There is no switched live (ignition on) on your car's stereo harness, so they would have had to pick this up from somewhere. Have you connected the CANBUS harness as this is the connection that tells the HU when to turn on?
Chances are the previuos owner butchered the wiring, or the CANBUS connector is shoved back in the dash somewhere. It won't power up without this connected. It is a black 20 pin mini ISO plug shown below:
I'm not very clued up on any of this, but when I asked the previous owner he said halfords installed the Sony HU with an adapter cable so when I came to put the concert back in I simply unplugged the adaptor and re connected the HU all the ports on the back of it was attached so I'm assuming that everything was plugged in correctly? I will post a picture of the wiring when I get back from work if that will help
