DAB not working?

[T51R]

I bought the wife a 1.8 tfsi A3 just before Christmas.

It took 3 months to find a used car with front/rear parking and reverse camera. Has MMI nav plus.

Build date is May 2014 which I believe means it should have DAB.
In the stored stations it only had radio 1 listed as DAB. In the settings menu it showed L band option.

However selecting this one stored DAB station , nothing played, silence. FM and AM work fine. In the menus I couldn’t find any way of selecting DAB other than choosing the single stored favourite.

Tonight in an attempt to find more DAB I tried a 3 button MMI reset. No change. Then tried restoring radio to factory defaults. Result - favourite list cleared, but now no trace of DAB anywhere.

Starting to wonder if this car even had DAB. How do I confirm?
Given the build date I thought DAB was standard fitment.

Any advice?

 

[RichardT]

Not sure, but I thought that DAB as standard came in a bit later in 2014. Mine was built in Sept 2014 and I think it just caught the DAB.
Mind you I found it pretty useless - kept dropping out, so now I just use FM, which is fine. We are in a bit of a fringe area for pretty much everything!!

 

[Chris43]

Maybe a daft question but do you have dab where you are? Its very much like mobile phones there can be black spots where no coverage exists.

 

[RAF_S7]

Dab coverage, especially for the BBC national DAB service is poor at best, which is probably not helping.

The question of whether you have DAB or not, is an easy one. If you have DAB option listed along with FM and AM, then you have DAB, otherwise it does not even appear in the menus.

If you have a rear dash cam fitted, this can play havoc with Dab reception.

 

[AllanG]

My A3 saloon was delivered in April 2014, and DAB was a standard fitment in my car.

 

[Phil-1]

My 13 plate A3 has DAB but as already said it’s very poor.
The DAB radio in my company Vauxhall van is better


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[REB154]

See my post here with regards to my S3 losing its DAB radio. Just because it doesn't appear in the waveband listing doesn't mean it isn't supposed to be there. My S3 is a 2015 model delivered July 2014.

 

[wab172uk]

DAB is w**k. Drive over the Pennines it goes off as it can't get a signal. Drive anywhere hilly, and as soon as you drive into a valley, it goes off.

DAB the future? My @rse!

 

[RAF_S7]

DAB is so 20th Century.

I stream Spotify over 3G, using TuneIn radio as the source.

Works fine

 

[Schizophonic]

My car was registered 2013 May but they did not have the DAB added into the MMI.

It wasn't till after June 2013 cars after that production date had it.

 

[royalsteve68]

Dab working depends where you live, it's a naff implementation. Having said that dab in rs3 has been fine. My wife's s3 is fine most of the time but oddly not as good as the rs3, si being an older car being a 2014 plate maybe this explains it. Could be older tech in the s3. The aftermarket pioneer in the pug 307 is pretty good but roughly on a par with the s3.

Question though, do you have a dashcam and if so is it a blackvue or winycam If so, almost certainly the cause of your problem. Shielding on blackvue and winycam is utter garbage. If so, switch off or unplug the dashcam and see if dab miraculously comes back

 

[RichardT]

DAB is so 20th Century.

I stream Spotify over 3G, using TuneIn radio as the source.

Works fine

I take the point. But what happens when you go out of mobile signal range. It's as bad around here as DAB is. You couldn't stream music in my village, or at least only on some networks.

 

[RAF_S7]

That’s true when streaming the radio. Spotify also lets you download to the phone, so it can be a music source in its own right, even when out of 3G range.

 

[T51R]

We have great DAB reception here so not an issue.

REB154 s post looks promising.

Like I said there were traces of DAB menus in the MMI but they have disappeared. It’s as if the DAB unit is no longer connected to the MMI.

Is there any seperate hardware I can check for in the car to make sure that DAB is fitted before I rock up at the local dealer and start complaining. Not looking forward to the dealer visit as the Used Approved Dealer buying experience was downright abysmal.

 

[JohnM100]

As others have stated, DAB was added as standard for cars built after May 2013 so it will have DAB built on to the 5F audio unit.

This is from memory so bear with me:

When you have radio selected on the MMI, go to top right button (source or waveband I think) - it should list DAB as an option?

For the one radio station you can get, click on functions button (bottom left) and then select seek up. Keep repeating this each time it stops on a station (*not* press and hold) and it will eventually do a full retune, including DAB frequencies that ‘update station list’ doesn’t look for.

I think I have mine set to group by ensemble, not L.

As you are in a strong DAB signal area and if that doesn’t fix it, then check the wiring loom to the DAB antenna before looking to fix the very expensive 5F unit.

Do radio stations appear with FM in brackets? If so, it can’t find the DAB version of a station so substitutes same station but on FM.

John.

 

[T51R]

I tried the dab seek and it did nothing. Tried the MMI reset and then a factory reset on the radio part of the MMI. Now there is no DAB menus or options or saved station anywhere. Just disappeared.
Where is this 5f unit and the dab antenna?

 

[JohnM100]

Hmm. If DAB is no longer coming up in the waveband menu then I am at a loss to explain

5F unit is the MMI electronics behind the glovebox.

DAB antenna is in the shark fin on the roof.

 

[Scott1972]

I tried the dab seek and it did nothing. Tried the MMI reset and then a factory reset on the radio part of the MMI. Now there is no DAB menus or options or saved station anywhere. Just disappeared.
Where is this 5f unit and the dab antenna?

Did you ever sort out the DAB problem as my A3 has just lost its DAB radio

 

[Svenedin]

Maybe it's a regional issue. My commute is 86 miles through the hills of Surrey and Hampshire and DAB works perfectly, even in the Hindhead tunnel which is over a mile long. I've never used the FM since I got the car 2 years ago.

 

[I_Ry87]

Hi. I joined the forum especially just to answer this question for any future owners with the same problem. I have a 2015 S3, when the DAB suddenly stopped working on a journey to Manchester. Silence when selected in favourites and the "DAB" option had disappeared from the Waveband menu (as if DAB never existed!). The car was 6 months out of warranty at the time, so i Googled it and scoured the forums, trying the three finger reset, factory reset, etc. you name it, i tried it! Eventually i gave in and took it to Reading Audi, who charged me their standard £120 investigative fee, just to tell me, "yeah, you're right. It's not working". Basically they tried to plug into the unit to give force an update but their was no connection. They then told me it was out of warranty (which i knew), so it would be £3,799.99 to replace the unit!! I obviously kicked up a fuss saying the item was not subject to wear and tear, could they at least offer to pay some of it?? No such luck. Luckily the sales guy was pretty useful and gave me the fault codes they got off the car (B201A00 and B200087 - both to do with the software. My dad's a mechanic and suggested trying a company he uses for ECUs called BBA Reman. I thought i'd rather try it than shell out nearly £4k to Audi or try and go down the route of a second hand unit and then getting it coded. So i take out the unit and send it off. Another £250 shelled out, but just under a week later, it was sent back to me with one of the fault codes fixed, just the software update needed. So once again, i'm back at Audi, £120 worse off again, but this time they were able to update the software and the DAB was back!!! So relieved! Touch wood, I've had no further problems and it's all as it was before.

 

[Harvey]

Great write up of your issue and fix. These guys may also offer repairs https://www.ecutesting.com/ and could well be cheaper than BBA Reman so drop them a line if people are having issues.

 

[baronS3]

Hi, I also don't have option in radio settings for DAB (S3 2019), only AM and FM (i had DAB in my previous A3 2017) which is strange to me. I'm 2nd owner of the car, so I dont know if there ever was option...

I searched a little and found that my 5F unit doesn't support DAB:

Modules 5F with part number 8W5035036 are MIB2 units without DAB receiver
Modules 5F with part number 8W5035035 are MIB2 units with DAB receiver

MU-P-LN-EU without DAB
MU-P-LND-EU with DAB

can someone confirm that, or is it sw or hw issue?

My vcds scan

 

[DJAlix]

Hi, I also don't have option in radio settings for DAB (S3 2019), only AM and FM (i had DAB in my previous A3 2017) which is strange to me. I'm 2nd owner of the car, so I dont know if there ever was option...

I searched a little and found that my 5F unit doesn't support DAB:

Modules 5F with part number 8W5035036 are MIB2 units without DAB receiver
Modules 5F with part number 8W5035035 are MIB2 units with DAB receiver

MU-P-LN-EU without DAB
MU-P-LND-EU with DAB

can someone confirm that, or is it sw or hw issue?

My vcds scan
View attachment 275372

this is a non DAB version of the MIB2 High Harman Unit

 

[baronS3]

this is a non DAB version of the MIB2 High Harman Unit

ok, thanks