Lt. Dan M.

I had my dash apart due to A/C problems. While it was apart I also sent off the PCM for a tune. All was working fine when I took the PCM out. I did put the dash cover back in before I got the PCM back, so the battery was disconnected when I put the dash pad in. Today I put the PCM back in and finished putting the center console and knee bolster in. The car runs and drives great, and the A/C is now ice cold on both sides of the car. My problem is now the radio is so low you can hardly hear it and there is a humming in the speakers. Also the outside time is way off, low, reading 63 when it is in the low 80s. When I turn the car off I still hear the humming in the speakers and when I turn the radio off it continues for 10 seconds or so then stops. Every now and then it will crackle and sound normal for a few seconds then back to nothing or super low sound. I took the center console out and it seemed like it was going in and out as I was messing with the wiring, but I couldn't find anything that I could forsure say was the cause. It never stayed working for long, just in and out. I also noticed when I pulled the radio I could hear hissing in the speakers as I rubbed the sides of the radio on the metal console mount, as if it has no ground. Anyone ever had the same problem? Any ideas? Is there anything I could have messed up, wiring wise, when I put the PCM back in? I wouldn't think the PCM would have anything to do with the radio. Also, what about the outside temp being off? No codes for any of this. Only codes I got was fuel trim, due to the new tune, and some loss of com codes I have been fighting for a few weeks, that never affected these things before.

Lt. Dan M.

Update: This is the wife's 99 A4 coupe, and she is telling me the outside temp has been messing up for a while, so that has nothing to do with the radio problem. I don't know what I did, but the radio is now working fine. I did find that there is almost 0.2 volts from the radio case to ground. I took the radio out of the console to check that and when it was out, case not grounded, is when is started working... I have the center console back together and all seems to be working, but I have no faith it will continue to. Guess all I can do is wait and see....

mstromquist

Sounds like you may have a bare wire touching someplace or maybe a bent pin in the radio connector. If its working now then I suspect you may have moved the culprit away from where it was grounding the last time you had it out.

Lt. Dan M.

It would seem that way. I've driven the car for a few trips around town and the radio is working fine but, now the HUD is only displaying RPM. It went to like a bluegreen, displaying multiple screens on top of each other. I turned it down and for a few then it was fine for a few then it went to just the RPM. Last time the HUD went flewy I replaced the battery and that was the end of the troubles. Will see what happens, kinda coincidental though....

Lt. Dan M.

Okay, finally had some time to look into the radio not working. The radio worked except the sound was really low and the volume control didn't raise the volume. Every now and then when the car hit a good bump it would crackle really loud and even work for a little while, then go back to low volume. Just by luck I found that someone else at some other time had been under the dash and removed one of the mounting screws from the signal processor and the other screw was not tight so, it had a bad ground. when I pushed on it from below the drivers side dash sound came back. Had the same problem with the radio when we bought the car back in 05, but is went away on it's own. I guess when I had the dash out I must have bumped the processor box and brought the problem back. Glad it is working again, hope this post can help someone else too.