Hi guys, new to the forums here

 I have a MK 2 Skoda superb 2011 Elegance TSI. My Columbus stereo recently broke with what seems to be an issue with the wiring. (it was making a repetitive thumping sound through the speakers even when the car is off, and the screen kept trying to start up and got stuck on a loop, anyway i disconnected the speakers from the back however now its time to get the problem fixed. I have seen a replacement radio for sale online for a decent price (£100) but slightly different spec. Im curious would the replacement radio would be compatible with my car before I travel to buy this radio and fit in mine.

I initially thought it would be a no brainer but a mechanic that i know told me that not all cars of the same make and model will be compatible in terms of chopping and changing radio head units.

 

My car Spec -  2011  Skoda Superb TSI Elegance 
Replacement car spec - 2012 - Skoda Superb TDI SE Plus 

 

I have attached pictures below, pictures of screen are the radio currently in my car (now broken) third image is the head unit im looking to buy

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated 

 

Many Thanks,

 

Marc 

It's not the issue of wiring, it's probably the well known problem of breaking soldering points of one of ICs. If I am right then the repair is quite easy - it's enough to have this IC resoldered.

Thank you. Appreciate your reply, would you recommend bringing it anywhere to get it looked at in particular? I’m in north west England. 
 

 

38 minutes ago, pab567 said:

It's not the issue of wiring, it's probably the well known problem of breaking soldering points of one of ICs. If I am right then the repair is quite easy - it's enough to have this IC resoldered.

Thank you. Appreciate your reply, would you recommend bringing it anywhere to get it looked at in particular? I’m in north west England. 
 

 

I'm in Poland so it does not make any sense to send it to me due to high costs. The IC that needs soldering is 8-bit microcontroller PIC16F747, I marked it red on the picture below.

 

 

I had the same problem as Marc - my 2014 Skoda Superb’s Columbus unit randomly turning on and off, sometimes stopping part way through booting and other times working normally for a short while before turning off again.  When the unit wasn’t in one of its brief operational spells there were also lots of very loud thumps from the speakers, sometimes when the key wasn’t even in the ignition!

Given the extortionate cost of replacement units I was looking at third-party replacements until I found this thread.  The Columbus was already unusable so I wasn’t risking a big bill if the repair didn’t work.  The whole repair process probably took about two hours due to my cautious approach but my Columbus is now restored to full functionality.

Huge thanks to pab567 for flagging this fix.

A few words of advice/warning for anyone attempting the repair themselves…

• The connections to the chip are tiny.

• You will be working on a chip that’s effectively in the base of a box that’s about three inches deep.

• A couple of the connections are even harder to get at because there’s another component right next to the chip.

• I have plenty of experience with a soldering iron, including PCB repair training, albeit nearly fifty years ago!

• You need a good soldering iron, a steady hand and good eyesight.  If you’ve not done any soldering on surface-mount components, have a bit of practice on a circuit board from a defunct piece of modern electronics.

• I thought that my soldering iron had a fine tip but it still wasn’t fine enough to reach the connections which were blocked by the adjacent component.  I extended the tip by winding a paper clip round the tip of the soldering iron (keep the protruding end as short as practical otherwise the heat won’t reach the end).  Very Heath Robinson but it did the job.

• Choose a non-corrosive flux that’s safe to leave on the board because you aren’t going to be able to clean off the surplus.  I got my pot from Amazon - check the blurb before buying.

• You’ll use a tiny amount of flux but make sure it’s smeared across all of the chip’s connections before you start resoldering.

• Just reheat each connections until the existing solder remelts (no more than a second).  DO NOT ADD MORE SOLDER as you’ll almost certainly end up with solder bridges between the fine connections.

• Good luck!