With an upcoming minibreak planned I wanted to get the audio side of things sorted.
The car came with a very loud, not terribly effective, very ugly aftermarket radio. It suffered from terrible radio reception (which I found was down to an incorrectly fitted radio antenna adaptor) and I never confirmed whether the CD player worked or not, seeing as I very rarely listen to CDs. It had to go.
I knew I wanted to keep things OE and all I really needed was the ability to listen to the radio. With these requirements – and having a pre-canbus car – my ‘plug and play’ options were a Chorus 1 or a Concert 1. I decided to go with a Concert 1 as it has the potential to add a CD changer in the future, should I suddenly develop the desire.
Scouring eBay I found many more available than I expected, all in varying states of disrepair – either the buttons were worn or the code wasn’t available or they were in the US. Then I stumbled across the one I eventually bought – I don’t know what it is with things I am finding on EBay at the moment but, like the toolkit, the radio appears to be brand new. Even when it arrived and I was able to closely inspect it, it was absolutely perfect. In case anyone is reading this and wondering; 4B0035186J has a fascia plate that slides straight into the A2 dash.
As it is very little additional work to remove, I decided to twin the fitting of the radio with the cleaning of the cup holders. Once the fascia adapter plates, the old radio and the centre vents had been removed I was left with this sizable hole. You can just see poking out a red connector block. I will cover this in my next post.
Spending a bit of time on the bench carefully separating the cup holders from the vent housing, I found that both they and the centre vents were absolutely filthy with deposits speckled over the vent fins and cupholders and a thin layer of sludge over the bottom of each vent unit – not a pleasant thought considering that is what the air into the cabin has to pass over.
As is the way, one job led to multiple other mini jobs as I decided to remove the side vents and give them a thorough clean too.
A combination of APC, cotton buds, wet wipes and elbow grease had the vents and cupholders looking like they were fresh out of the box, but more importnatnly; hygienic. The cotton buds shows the extent of the dirt.
On refitting the side vents I removed the passenger side vent toggle and re-fitted it to the drivers side which was broken - a freshly sourced replacement part is now awaiting fitment.
Cupholders and centre vents cleaned, relubricated and Concert 1 fitted. All-in-all a much more pleasant centre stack to look at and listen to, happy in the knowledge that I’m not having filthy air blown into my face.
In terms of performance, the Concert 1 has exceeded my expectations. It is excellent with all the functionality I need and I would venture that it is as loud as the previous radio but the clarity of sound is far superior. It is also nice having perfect radio reception again.