2011 A1 radio stopped working - no lights

[jr_lon]

Hi there,

Appreciate any help diagnosing this one. My sons A1 1.2 S-Line radio has stopped working - no LED's lit on the switches, no display on the dashboard screen.  It happened after the car had not been used for a couple of weeks and the RMC display briefly flashed up a warning about a "low battery" and the display turned itself off. I think this is supposed to be a normal behaviour when the battery is a bit low.  Anyway, the car started fine and pressing the radio 'on' button turned on the radio and dashboard display started initialising, then it turned itself off again a few seconds later.

This happened a couple of times trying to get the thing to power up,  now it refuses to turn on at all.   In all other respects the car starts and drives normally, but the radio panel and dash display are now blank and won't turn on at all.   I have noticed what sounds like a fan running on the right hand side of the RMC unit so I assume it has power.   Picture of the unit it attached - I believe it is the basic RMC Cnct Nav unit.  

Any advice or suggestions where to take it for diagnosis and repair ? Based NE London / Essex / Herts borders.

Cheers - Jon.

 

 

[Steve Q]

I'd recommend a diagnostic check to see if any fault codes flag up. Also if the battery is low have you had a new battery fitted? 

[jr_lon]

2 hours ago, Steve Q said:

I'd recommend a diagnostic check to see if any fault codes flag up. Also if the battery is low have you had a new battery fitted? 

Yes, fitted a brand new battery and no difference.  I have a basic ELM327 based dongle using the 'Car Scanner' Android app that didn't show anything - not sure if that's good enough on this car.  Recommend anything better or more comprehensive ?  

[Steve Q]

Is the battery coded to the car? 

Obd eleven or VCDS are good diagnostic tools. 

[jr_lon]

Thanks for the tip on ODBEleven Steve.  

So I coded the battery and cleared all the 'low battery voltage' plus other errors from the control modules.  Now when I re-scan I am left with one error on the Gateway module - Fault Code 00384 - Optical Data Bus - open circuit.  The radio will still not turn on and the 'Multimedia' control module says "Error - control unit not responding" when trying to display any faults, though none are actually logged.

The car has a basic MMC radio and screen with no boot mounted amplifier.

I'm guessing that the either the radio or the display has given up the ghost ?

Jon.

[jr_lon]

Just to close this one out, the radio was faulty.  Fortunately Revtronic were able to repair it and problem resolved.