S3 L&K: All radio presets gone!

[grenness]

[edit: sorry, heading should be *presets, of course, but not allowed to edit the header afterwards...]

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

We took our new (2 months old) Superb 190HP TDI L&K 4x4 on vacation this christmas.

Before we left home I had it hooked up to a charger some 15 hours or so (habit from my previous car, Land Rover Discovery 3 that uses, and needs, a lot of battery power).

We drove for 4 hours straight, then parked it up in the mountains - in a blistering storm, but it shouldn't do any harm as I see it.

After 5 days, it was time to get going again. I used the Webasto to pre-heat the engine for a full 30 mins, then started the car up without any drama. No sign that the battery was low or anything.

The radio (DAB+) was tuned to the station I listened to when I parked the car, but when I wanted to change station, all my presets were gone.

 

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

 

Christopher

 

Here's the car after the storm had passed:

Edited 6 January, 2017 by john999boy
Edited title.

[LakesPuma]

One suggestion, did you change driver profile?

 

I was surprised to find that presets are stored with the driver profile (a neat feature)

[grenness]

I think you might be on to something, I did actually rename my (only) profile, but since I only renamed it it shouldn't change IMHO...

[Silverage]

I've had this happen twice now on my L&K in the three months I have had it.

I don't use profiles and my car is not exposed to Norwegian storms. Both times it was when coming to the car first thing in the morning. Where the radio station name normally appears it said "6A" and all DAB, FM and AM presets were gone. No other information was lost from the Columbus, satnav or other settings, just the presets.

[grenness]

I've had this happen twice now on my L&K in the three months I have had it.

I don't use profiles and my car is not exposed to Norwegian storms. Both times it was when coming to the car first thing in the morning. Where the radio station name normally appears it said "6A" and all DAB, FM and AM presets were gone. No other information was lost from the Columbus, satnav or other settings, just the presets.

 

That's interesting.

Have you done any further investigations, taken it to the dealer to have them perform a diagnostic or something?

 

I'm taking mine to the dealer on Tuesday since my right rear driving bulb suddenly stopped working, and I'm going to ask them to check for any error messages in the system that can relate to the presets disappearing, but also the bulb. Of course it could be that the bulb itself was faulty/old or was handled wrong, but I also want to rule out any errors in the electric system.

I was going to replace the bulb myself, but they offered to do it for free and it's on my route to work, so... ;-)

Edited 7 January, 2017 by grenness

[Silverage]

Apart from redoing the presets, I haven't really bothered about it. If it was happening every couple of days I may take it in, but I imagine it would be one of those things that unless you can actually demonstrate it going wrong in front of them, they wouldn't be able to do amything about it.

[Silverage]

Just happened again this morning. Made a short journey first thing and all was well. Stopped for about 10 minutes and when I restarted the car, all presets and logos gone with just "5A" on the station name display. I wonder what's causing it?

[Dodgygtr]

This just happened to me I've lost all radio stations saved and I can't get DAB radio. Anyone know how to do a soft reset?

[penguin17]

1 hour ago, Dodgygtr said:

Anyone know how to do a soft reset?

 Push and hold down the power button until you see the unit resetting. 

[CheshireBumpkin]

Happened to me this week after the car had been parked up in an airport carpark for a few days. Irritating, but not the end of the world. I'll have to re-add them and see if it happens again.... Have any of the previous posters in this thread seen much (if any) reoccurrence? 

[grenness]

Not seen any more of this problem myself.

[penguin17]

Seems to be common with most VAG DAB units.  I haven't seen it on my Superb but my Leon did it a couple of times in 3 years.  There is often complaints about it on SCN and other Audi owners forums.

 

[CheshireBumpkin]

Well, it's not happened again (yet!) so I'll keep my fingers crossed.... 

[mccrosss]

This also happened to me - just started the ignition and all my DAB pre-sets had disappeared. Moreover, was unable to get DAB radio for the day. Was not out of coverage - at home. Booked it into Skoda. 24 Hours later I re-programmed and problem has not yet re-occurred so cancelled SKODA job.  From other posts, seems to be more than coincidental. Never happened to me on any other car, nor the iOS compatibility probs (see other post) I just wonder how resilient Skoda electronics are (after all, my car was delivered with 2 factory faults, one of which that required 12 hours labour to identify including removal of dash. 'Mis-made' was the technical description as to why lane and park assist didn't work from new. (Not to mention naughty dealer who omitted to do basic PDI checks)

 

This is my first SKODA and there is much to admire about the S3 but at this price level of circa 30K these and other faults should not be occurring - the experience could be described as mixed at best.

[Mr Grump]

I have just had it happen to mine, not the end of the world, but hopefully it won't become a regular thing !

[CheshireBumpkin]

Odd one, isn't it? Annoying, but thankfully hasn't happened to me since...

 

[smo_1981]

Happened to me a few times now, are there any fixes to this as its bloody annoying!

 

[mccrosss]

On ‎23‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 11:28, Silverage said:

Just happened again this morning. Made a short journey first thing and all was well. Stopped for about 10 minutes and when I restarted the car, all presets and logos gone with just "5A" on the station name display. I wonder what's causing it?

 

Similar has happened to me twice.

Same message.

 

Happened randomly first thing in morning.

5A message disappeared 36 hours later. No rationale why. Had to re-program DAB.

 

I wasn't out of my usual geographical area or subject to adverse weather - just gremlins - very annoying admittedly. Had booked in into garage but resolved before my appointment.

 

[Silverage]

Not had this happen with mine for quite a while now.

 

The satnav part got its knickers in a twist the other day and wouldn't accept any destination inputs. That problem cleared after about 30 mins.

[iamdrew]

Just happened to me today.  All working fine.  Parked for 10 minutes for a quick errand and on return all presets gone and 5A message on radio display.  Re-programmed the resets and all is well again.  Irritating though...

[Skodafanmaybe]

Happened to me twice now in first 6 months. Cannot recall any action beforehand on my part.

Always when getting into the car, ie not on the move.

I have also lost the dab station sound whilst listening to it and driving. Still shows the station on the display. Swapping to another dab station and then back cures it.

[TGR]

This has happened to me twice in the last couple of weeks now, three time in total. First time was after a couple of days old just after I set the driver profile so I can kind of understand that. This time though -  nothing to do with driver profiles (I'm the only driver). I just got in and the radio was on a random DAB station I don't normally tune into and all the presets were gone.

No major deal, just re-program. Just weird. What's the deal?

[ash01]

This used to happen all the time on my ford focus. I named the car Ferbie - play on herbie in case ya didn't get it.

 

I had no remedy and neither did the garage I took it too. Even happened to the mechanic looking at it for the problem.

 

One of those things I guess.

 

I guess I just posted to say that I feel your pain!

 

Ash!!

[grenness]

Happened again, 11 months since last time.

Had been driving for 30 minutes, parked for maybe 10-15 minutes, drove off, radio went on with ignition as usual, last radio station playing, but all DAB presets gone.

All FM presets,  on the other hand, are still there..!

 

("Tom" is Norwegian for "Empty", by the way)

Edited 21 November, 2017 by grenness

[BriskodaJeff]

Happened to me yesterday (or more accurately I noticed it for the first time yesterday). At this stage I'm going with the personalisation settings as being the issue. I've set up separate personalisation for SWMBO and me and tied mine to my fob. From memory I didn't set DAB presets for hers. When SWMBO drives it is generally with me (and my KESSY) also in the car and I suspect it gets confused as to whose fob is actually "in control". I've also been doing some fine tuning (and saving) of my seat position - it always takes me 6 months to find a position I really like and then keep. I was doing this on Sunday with both fobs in the car.

 

As a test I'm going to set some random DAB stations in her personalisation and assign it to her fob while mine stays far away from the car. Then, once her fob is safely tucked away I will reset my DAB presets and reassign to my fob. This should tell us whose fob is in control by looking at the presets. I will also try to remember to check DAB presets before and after making any more tweaks to my seat setting. Any other suggestions?