Hi all, I'm fairly sure this has been tried by many Skoda owners.

 

I want to replace the factory fitted  'Dance' radio/CD player with a DAB version with an amplified Ariel.

 

I have sourced a radio and Ariel but I am unsure about how to remove and replace the A pillar facia and headliner without damaging it.

 

Is this an easy job ? are there any instructions available ( not sure if the Haynes manual has this ) and I'd like to know if there any special tools I need.

 

Has anyone tried this ? I'm planning on driving this car for many more years and I can't live with the old radio any longer :(

 

All advice is very much appreciated.

The A Pillar just pulls off. Pull it from the top to start with, you can get your fingers in at the top. Once the top pops off the middle clip I have always pushed out sideways before the bottom clip again pulls off.

Is your antenna at the front then ?

On replacement line the clips onto their holes before giving the plastic a side fist bang on.

I've had to change my antenna at the rear for dab. The rear involves popping off the C Pillars and the rear roof clips. The front I've read can be accessed via the interior light, but I've no experience on that as my antenna was at the rear.

 

Hi Aubrey,

thanks for your post, photos and advice.

My antenna is indeed at the rear of the roof just in front of the hatch door. This is why I need to remove the A pillar and the headliner. 

I plan to run the cables from the radio to the left behind the dash, up the A pillar, then to the rear under the headliner.

Sounds like the A pillar should be straight forward to remove.

The problem is getting the headliner off and replacing it after I have run the cables.

 

I'd be interested to know how you ran your cables to the rear antenna. I'm having trouble understanding your explanation. It sounds like you did what I need to do. The only way I can see to do this is to remove the headliner and run cables from the top of the C pillar under the headliner to the antenna. To do this I must surely have to remove the whole headliner ( it's one piece after all ), somehow stick the cables to the underside of the roof and then replace the headliner.

 

To put it simply. The existing antenna has the signal cable to the radio. I need to replace this with the signal and power cables of the new DAB radio.

 

Am I misunderstanding something here ?

I didn't take the whole headliner off that's a bit overkill. I pulled off both rear C Pillars from the top. Undoing the centre seat belt roof mount seat. Popping off the rear roof fir-tree big pop on buttons that hold the roof lining up at the rear. Then from the rear you have just enough access to pull the roof lining down a bit and get a ratchet on the antenna nut. For the cable I pulled the top door seals away and fed the cable along, from antenna to rear door, rear door to front door, front door to A Pillar. I found I could manoeuvre the cable forward that way, I think removing the whole lining is too big and unnecessary. A stiff plastic rod is handy to poke forward, tie wire to and then pull through from further along.

A couple of the rear fir tree pop on buttons, broke when I pulled them off. I got replacement grey 26mm for tree push on replacements from eBay. They look fine. My roof lining is white, so has light colour push on clips. I got these to replace them all, 8 X 26mm light grey https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F122090079826

Edited 5 August, 20187 yr by aubrey
Correction

Thanks again. That's a very comprehensive explanation. 

I imagined just dropping the whole headliner down but it's only bits of it need to be pulled away to get access.

I'm sure this will be a frustrating job.

I will update this post as and when the job gets done. I might take some pics too.

cheers for now

No worries, a couple of other points. 1) my car's a Roomster not a Fabia and 2) I run the cables (power, am/fm and dab) down the passenger side. The antenna power I attached to my radios electric aerial power out wire, that went 12v when the radio was switched on.

you could just get the autoleads one and fit that to the windscreen...

 

http://www.ukpassats.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=76247

I've had a look at the link you posted. Definitely a possibility, but I'm one of those irritating perfectionists. Just got to get the best reception. Cheers anyway.

I had a stick on windscreen dab antenna to start with. The reception was rubbish. It only worked in really strong signal areas, anywhere else it sounded like a group of fighting mice squeaking like crazy.

With the roof antenna it is so much better. I have still had the odd dropouts on the motorway, but now it is very rare.