Greetings to all Skoda lovers,

My Skoda car radio, Symphony model with CD (supposedly OEM made in Germany by TechniSat) stopped working last friday. The deadly symptoms begun the day before (thursday) when the radio misteriously asked me twice that same day to insert the code... weird I thought... but I've proceeded and at the end of that very same day, the radio started making strange annoying striking/poping sounds through the car speakers. I immediately switched OFF the radio, parked my car, went home sweet home and forgot about it. Next day morning (friday), just as I do all week days, started my car and the radio never powered ON again.

The Skoda 2-year warranty ended last May 2004 and my Skoda sales representative is claiming for 3 months to get a *dubious* reply on whether if it's possible or not to fix it, even though, I'll have to pay (don't know how much) no matter if their reply is positive or negative. Further more, they've asked me aprox. 650 Eur (that I obviously can't afford to pay) if my option was to buy a similar/new one.

So I've made up my mind and decided to ask a skilled car radio techinician to help me fix the problem with the radio, but unfortunately TechniSat is not represented in here, and in order to opperate in a safety way, this technician needs this specific model's service/technical manual or diagram shema. As he only has made ON/OFF tests 'til now, he assured me the radio's still not responding... or completely dead. Now he's kind of affraid to open up the radio and get into the mainboard before he's got some supportive literature. He only has got schemas and tech manuals for this same Symphony model made by Blaupunkt and Grundig (which are definitely different, he said). Unfortunately, my model's made by TechniSat. :(

I've already sent an email to TechniSat's support staff, though I didn't receive any feedback 'til now, and my (bad) guess is that they will never provide support and turn this manuals available for me.

Is there any good soul surfing these forums that may HELP me, please!?

I'm really desperate, and I'm in this process of moving any mountain before I decide to buy another brand/model.

Please let me know if you need further information and/or feel free to PM me if necessary.

THANK YOU ALL!

--

Louie

throw it away and replace it with a decent head unit, it's really not worth the hassle as the symphony units are garbage anyway (IMHO)...

Greetings Skoda lovers!

zombiefly & Welliesorter: thanks for taking your time to post.

zombie: Thanks for the hint but... I made a 'battle horse' out of this matter, and I don't pretend to give up 'til I exhaust all available resources.

Wellie: Thanks for leading me to eBay auctions (curious but I never thought of it as an option). Nevertheless, I find the prices for such items very expensive. Sterling pounds (when exchanged to Euros) is still (unfortunately for me) a much higher and stronger currency. As to finding a *used* Symphony CD unit here in PT, I guess it is not easy at all, as I've previously tried specialized sites in used items to no avalable.

Now just for an update... I've made two telephone contacts with TechniSat in Luxembourg and spoke to somenone that could not promise the manuals would be delievered to me, but said to me that would talk to the support staff and that should have a reply next week. So I've waited and tried a new contact past wednesday... when wanting to check the phone number once again online... guess what!?... the phone number was pulled down from the website.

Go figure...

I have to agree with the others, it will be better to just buy a new radio. The local Skoda dealer should be able to supply an adapter so a normal sized radio will fit.

Greetings Skoda lovers!

rooboy: thanks for posting.

New update...

I can now consider it official unsupported!

Just received an email from TechniSat:

=====

First of all, we would like to apology for our late answer.

Unfotunately, we are not able to send you the technical manual, so we

would like to suggest you to contact your local Skoda dealer. There you can

get an alternate device (so-called X-device) which will be less expensive

than a new car radio.

Best regards

=====

I wonder what the heck an "alternate device (so-called X-device) is!?

Could you wise fellows share some light!? TIA!