My dying battery saga

Johann

Member
Well it is not over yet. Been going on for months now but at least at the moment it takes about a month between total drains of the battery. So a very random thing that happens to the car to drain it out of the blue overnight. And last night as I walked past it I SAW the problem! My radio was on!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And no I did not leave it on. It was on but there was no graphics on the screen. All the other lights in the car were off and only the lights of the radio was on. Got in and tried to switch it off. Nothing. Started car. Still did not want to switch off. So in the end looked in the manual to take the radio fuse out. That did the trick and it went dead and immediately the CD changer inside started its start up whirr and all was well.

Now why does the fuses not look the same as the fuses printed in the manual?!! Manual says radio fuse is top left second from the top. There was NO fuse in this top right spot at all! When in fact the radio fuse was bottom right second from the bottom. Hence me going bottom right. Well it immediately worked whether it was the radio fuse or not.

Now. Where do the boffins think the problem is? Inside the Symphony II? The connection to it? The fuse? Ideas appreciated.
 
It wouldn't be anything to do with a fuse. It's likely to be the Symphony II. However, have you done any modifications to it or added any third party devices to the unit like iPod, bluetooth, amps etc? Have you taken any power from the Radio wires for anything else? would the previous owner have had any modifications done to this area before you buying it say like Phone cradle/ car kit?

The fuse box being printed upside down, I Guess 'may' have been because of the left hand to right hand conversion for the UK market. They are numbered though.

The fuse for the Radio is the 'second' to the top left in the manual (no.2), but it is the second from the bottom right on the RHD UK cars.



Cheers

Sarge
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks Sarge. No I have had my A2 since new. Only thing added was the bluetooth car kit and that was 7 years ago. And that only plugs into the back of the radio. Nothing else has been done to the Symphony. Weird thing too is after draining the car and in all the times it has done that, it has never lost its settings. It didn't last night either.

I'll just have the radio checked out by someone. Thankfully the radio lives on its own fuse so I can now just take that fuse out when I park the car!

Re. the fuse positions: thankfully the top left "number 2" spot of the fuse box was empty so I could figure out that the thing was upside down vs the handbook!
 
Thanks Sarge. No I have had my A2 since new. Only thing added was the bluetooth car kit and that was 7 years ago. And that only plugs into the back of the radio. Nothing else has been done to the Symphony. Weird thing too is after draining the car and in all the times it has done that, it has never lost its settings. It didn't last night either.

I'll just have the radio checked out by someone. Thankfully the radio lives on its own fuse so I can now just take that fuse out when I park the car!

Re. the fuse positions: thankfully the top left "number 2" spot of the fuse box was empty so I could figure out that the thing was upside down vs the handbook!

Could it be that the Bluetooth car kit has developed a fault? is it a third party type or Audi original type?

If the Symphony seems to be working as normal, this may not be an easy fault to establish, because of it's nature of being intermittent, unless it's happening more often.

If you take the Symphony out of circuit, then it may behave differently on bench test, as any other device connected to it in car won't be there.

Sometimes 'audio entertainment units' can go into doing all sorts of funny things like 'lock outs' (frozen displays being non responsive until the little reset button is pressed) because of things like voltage spikes, static etc.


Lets hope its a simple fix though. :)


Cheers

Sarge
 
Hi Johan,

There was a post a way back (see link!) which 2 of us commented that our symphony II had lit up but with no title / text on the display. In all cases taking the fuse out reset the problem. I did the same as you, and only noticed when I went outside to move the wheellie bin for collection. The fault hasn't reoccured in 10 months, so I have no idea what caused it. Hope you have fixed it for good.

Cheers,

David

http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8501
 
David a million times thank you for this!!! This will indeed be my exact problem I suspect. How to fix it permanently I don't know but I asked Mike and will go and ask the auto electrician that helped me before too.

And if it can't be fixed I can always just take that fuse out when I park the car.
 
battery flatting & CD changers

I guess since this thread is quiet now Johann has problem solved: I have exactly the same glitch and have charged the battery from flat three times now, each time it has flatted dead in no more than 10 days, so I will try the fuse as I also have Sympony head unit with CD changer built-in. Got to get the beast out and in the house to re-charge first tho'....
Q: I also have a CD changer in the RHS boot and once or twice the Symphony head unit could access this but subsequently has not: how do I get it to repeat the trick and play also from this source?
 
Alas I have not solved the problem. But since I know the Symphony is to blame I just take the fuse out all the time... and since doing that the car has never died on me. And I can leave it for weeks without so much as a stutter when I start it again. So I know it IS the Symphony. Just not had the time to look for another radio - or indeed the money. Car is not used that much these days alas.
 
Mine has since done this again too. So twice in 2.5 years! There doesn't seem to be any pattern, but my data set is a bit limited! As with you Johann I will wait until it happens every day before I look for a replacement head unit.

Cheers,

David
 
Back
Top