Hi all,

 

I'm now the proud owner of a 2014 Roomster but I've been having some issues with the radio (it has the 'Radio Swing' type radio unit fitted). I bought it second hand a few months back and noticed quickly that something wasn't quite right with the radio unit. It would often not turn on at all on startup, or if it did, it would then turn out it would then turn on and off randomly throughout the journey. On top of this it would turn off quite often when I tried to change the volume, up or down. More recently it wouldn't turn on at all, for one journey from the North East down to London it wouldn't turn on at all, or on the way back. It was a lonely journey! But it did then turn itself on a few days later, on full volume, in the middle of the night, blaring away, when parked up in a locked garage waking up half the neighbours in the process!

 

A few days later the same thing happened again, I couldn't let this keep happening so I looked up the location of the radio fuse in the fuse box and took it out which solved the problem of the radio coming on in the night nicely! A few days later I went back to the car for a journey, put the fuse back in hopeful for a bit of radio to find that taking the fuse out makes the car think it needs the security code now, for the radio to work. Now I'm a new Skoda owner, it's my first ever car, and it was quite an outlay and so am keen to get it back and working, and also for as little as money as possible; hence my asking for advice here...

 

- Does anyone have any advice about the radio security code? I've looked in other forums on similar topics on briskoda and some people have suggested there will be a copy of the code somewhere in the car/in the manual? I've had a look in the manuals and no sign of any code. The 'Radio Swing Owner's Manual' says the code is stored in the instrument cluster and is automatically decoded but clearly, that hasn't worked as it's asking for the code... Do you think the only option now is to use one of the many websites that seem to be out there and pay £10/£15 for a new code? OR to go to Skoda directly and ask them for the code? I'm a bit wary of this as other posts on briskoda have suggested Skoda charge a bit more, and you don't actually get to see the code - which may be an issue if the problem isn't solved and the radio keeps playing in the night! I'll need to take the fuse out on an ongoing basis!

 

Secondly!

 

- Does anyone have any advice about the weird behaviour of the radio before I pulled the fuse out and disabled it? I'm very hopeful it's just a loose connection somewhere but fear it may be something more (and more expensive to fix!). Has anyone had any similar experiences with theirs that they've managed to fix? Or tried to fix without luck even? 

 

Thanks in advance for any help and advice you may be able to give! It's much appreciated...

Cheers,

 

Rob

It needs a scan with diagnostics (VCDS or similar) to see if there's anything amiss. It might be that connecting VCDS and scanning the radio will make it remember the coding and it'll start to work (it has done before for me). If you wanna pop over to me near Richmond I'll give it a scan for you and see what's going on, or alternatively you can pay £10 or so from an ebay seller and get the code from them to get it working again.

Hi Rob, welcome to Briskoda and to Roomster ownership.

 

Since your car is less than three years old, I would have thought the radio should be fixed under Skoda warranty.

Thank you so much gents; for some reason I had it in my mind that the warranty was 2 years - it seems as you say its 3 years if less than 60,000 miles which mine is... I'll get it booked in to my local dealer asap and try and get it sorted by the time the warranty runs out (end of January).

Rustynuts; thanks so much for your kind offer. All the best to you both! Many thanks

If the stereo is original fitment to this car I think VAG policy is to supply the code gratis on proof of ID, ownership etc 

I have not been supplied with a code with my new Roomie as I believe the code is stored within the car's electronics and only works in the car it is supplied and fitted. 

I have not been supplied with a code with my new Roomie as I believe the code is stored within the car's electronics and only works in the car it is supplied and fitted. 

 

The code when entered stays in that car's ECU, this doesn't mean the unit can't be used in another car - obviously, with a security code it will work in any car, VW, Skoda or Seat. 

 

I had an issue in my old Touran where I had put so many different units in the car the ECU forgot the code for the original unit. 

 

As per my previous post, VW supplied the code after a few checks ... you should have a credit card sized card with the code in your owners handbook(mine was lost), so probably a good idea to ask for the code when you next attend your dealer?