Hi there! 

This is my first post on Briskoda. Good to be here. I recently purchased a great wee runabout Fabia MKII 1.2, and about 4 days ago had the radio stop working. One day I was driving along, with a bluetooth receiver plugged in to the auxiliary input, which was charging via the 12v socket. The radio then turned on by itself, popped, popped again and then I turned it off. It has not turned on since then, nor does it light up when I turn the driving lights on. 
 

I have checked all of the fuses, those related to the radio, and those not related and there seems to be no issue. I have a feeling there might have been a surge go down the auxiliary cable and that has fried the radio? Any thoughts here? 

In addition to this, the button which turns the recirculated air on and off no longer lights up or works - are these two systems linked at all? It was working fine before! 

Any help would be appreciated. 

It does sound like you have blown a fuse, perhaps. I am unsure if there are any fuses actually on the stereo unit itself but that used to be quite a common thing. You think you blow a fuse, cant find it, only to realise it is either mounted on or in the unit or an inline one, on the live wire.

It seems it's fairly common. It looks similar to the Stream stereo I had in my first Octavia. That would make random loud popping sounds and sometimes completely freeze up.

 

I ended up replacing it with a Columbus.

4 minutes ago, mrgf said:

It does sound like you have blown a fuse, perhaps. I am unsure if there are any fuses actually on the stereo unit itself but that used to be quite a common thing. You think you blow a fuse, cant find it, only to realise it is either mounted on or in the unit or an inline one, on the live wire.

I have checked all of the fuses under the steering wheel to no avail, and managed to take out the stereo to see if there was a fuse on the back. There was, but it was totally fine. Odd! 

 

3 minutes ago, Phil-E said:

It seems it's fairly common. It looks similar to the Stream stereo I had in my first Octavia. That would make random loud popping sounds and sometimes completely freeze up.

 

I ended up replacing it with a Columbus.

 

Is there any chance you could link me to the Colombus unit you used? I have essentially zero experience with car radios, but I am pretty technologically handy. I presume it was simple to replace?

My ten year old Dance unit has never had issues but perhaps I got lucky!

Do any other lights come on on the dash? I did just remember a strange thing, where if you clean the dash pop with a rag, whilst the ignition is on, it makes the dash lights and stuff go off. It looks/sounds like you have blown a fuse and will not come back on until you disconnect the battery for a bit, then put it back on again. Its almost like a fail-safe! I am unsure if it stopped the audio too. I only had it happen twice and found out how to fix it by trial and error. Had it do it again and remembered what to do. 

There are also fuses in the engine bay, doubt any of these feed the radio but worth a check. You said you had the radio out, did you check the connecter for power?

 

John

56 minutes ago, jjc said:

There are also fuses in the engine bay, doubt any of these feed the radio but worth a check. You said you had the radio out, did you check the connecter for power?

 

John

 

I haven't checked the engine bay fuses, as I was just going off of what was in the manual - in that there was no documentation on their presence in the engine bay. I'll have a look tomorrow morning. Thanks for the thoughts there. 
 

2 hours ago, mrgf said:

My ten year old Dance unit has never had issues but perhaps I got lucky!

Do any other lights come on on the dash? I did just remember a strange thing, where if you clean the dash pop with a rag, whilst the ignition is on, it makes the dash lights and stuff go off. It looks/sounds like you have blown a fuse and will not come back on until you disconnect the battery for a bit, then put it back on again. Its almost like a fail-safe! I am unsure if it stopped the audio too. I only had it happen twice and found out how to fix it by trial and error. Had it do it again and remembered what to do. 

So - all of the other lights come on in the dash battery, parking break, etc etc. I've heard that if you disconnect the battery the radio goes in to a safe mode - I can give it a try though! 

It goes into safe mode, checks its own code and if its all ok, it re starts. It will only give a problem if you have the wrong unit. The code is actually stored somewhere inside the unit anyway but main dealers can give it to you, on proof of ownership of the vehicle. They are not meant to charge for this but I have heard some try! It will mean going to them, with all the appropriate documentation.

Yeah the code is obviously hard coded into the stereo. And this code is then stored in the car (in the instrument cluster to be exact). So even if it goes into safe mode it will re-sync with the car and work again.