Is there any hope of my car radio working properly?

Factual Questions
1

I bought a new car stereo the other day and I installed it on Tuesday. Te old stereo, which was also after-market, had three problems:

  1. It claimed that it played MP3/WMA CDs, but did so very sporadically. I tried several different types of burning, using the built in burner for Vista, XP on my old computer, and Nero, and there was no consistency in reading the disc.

  2. It had no aux input for my iPod. Combined with #1, this made it very hard to play my music collection short of hauling around my CDs and burning my digital-only music as audio CDs.

  3. The raadio worked for shit. It was static so much of the time, and not even constant static. One day I could get all stations fine, the next day I could get none of them, and then some days I would get just the one station that has a stronger signal, but it goes in and out with my car moving. Seriously, like I would be at a stop light and hear static, creep uo fouyr or five feet, and it was clear as a bell.

The new stereo has solved #1 and #2. As I feared, it seems the radio problem is linked to the antenna, and not the head unit or the connection to the head unit, which I have checked and double checked.

The car is a 99 VW Passat. I’m assuming that if it’s not the head uinit or connection, then it’s either the external antenna, or (even worse) somewhere between the antenna and the connection. I suppose buying a new antenna is possible, but there’s probably nothing I can do if it’s just a problem somewhere in the line?

Is there a way I can buy a different antenna and just run it through to the dash myself somehow?

2

You can certainly buy an aftermarket antenna and install it. Running the cable is tricky but not impossible.

Before you do that, however, try two other things.

  1. Grab the base of the antenna (where it bulges out and attaches to the fender.) If it wiggles around, it may not be clamped to the fender properly, creating a bad ground. It’s relatively easy to tighten.

  2. Check the ground from the radio. Since you’ve just replaced the unit, check where the ground connects to the body of the car (probably somewhere on the firewall.)

Bad grounds can screw up reception and be a real pain to troubleshoot.

3

I know some Volkswagens have some sort of a bizarre powered antenna pre-amp somewhere between the stereo and the antenna – when it goes caput, the radio reception becomes erratic even with aftermarket stereos.

4

I was going to give the less eloquent version of what kunilou said. Hopefully the problem is at the base of the current antenna, as that’d be the easiest to fix.

5

I’ve checked the base, and it doesn’t wiggle at all. I did hook up the “antenna power” cable, too, so if that “pre-stereo/post-antenna pre-amp” thingy needs power, it’s got it.

6

Doesn’t “antenna power” refer not to the amp, but to a power antenna, that moves up and down? I’ve never had to hook one up, but that’s what I always thought it meant.

7

VWs do have a “antenna amp” that groman referred to. I’ve checked around and some other sites/forums, and this is a common issue with VWs. Since my headunit did come with an adapter to supply 12v to this amp, the problem is with the amp itself, or the wire between the amp and the connection to the head unit.

sigh

I have found instructions for removing my headliner and checking the antenna (it seems that one problem is salt/corrosion causing problems,) but is that worth my time and effort? It seems it might be easier to just buy a new antenna lead, or hell, since it’s FM, can’t I just run a fucking wire from my head unit’s antenna in up along the side of my car?

8

Did myself a little experiment and it’s clearly that antenna amp thingy. With the antenna unplugged, the reception improved a LOT. Enough so that a completely static station was listenable, but still a bit of static, and the a couple stations that barely came in before came in clear as a bell. The reception got even better when I just stuck a piece of wire against the antenna receiver going into the headunit, so it looks like that’s what I’m going to do, unless that’s a big no-no.

I figure I’ll leave the real one unplugged, and just splice a wire onto the one going into the receiver, and run it…somwhere. Seriously, just a few inches of wire that I tested with improved the recption a lot, so I don’t need to run it very far.

(actually, I’ll splice it into the adapter I got that hooks into the VW antenna connection, that way I keep the original connector on my head unit un-damaged.)

9

Check the fuses.