Radio interference with brake pedal

Recently I swapped the buttons on my climate unit with black ones from an A4 B5 as described here on the forum - looks great.
Next trip, every time I apply the brakes, the radio loses its signal and returns to normal when you release the brake.

Anyone have an idea of what I've done?

A2blue said:

Recently I swapped the buttons on my climate unit with black ones from an A4 B5 as described here on the forum - looks great.
Next trip, every time I apply the brakes, the radio loses its signal and returns to normal when you release the brake.

Anyone have an idea of what I've done?

Click to expand...

Unlikely to be related.

LED bulbs cause loss of signal but I doubt if you have fitted LED bulbs on your stop and tail because that would cause your dash errors to look like a christmas tree!!

But check your brake lights anyway, one bulb out could be triggering the "bulb out" sensor and they can sometimes cause intrference


Steve B

You were spot on Steve, thanks.

I bought the car recently and have been slamming the tailgate to close it but I eventually twigged that the catch needed adjustment and now it closes easily. Because of the slamming, the trim has pulled away from the tailgate and I came on the forum to see how to replace it.

It seems I just need to line it up and bang firmly above each clip to fix it in place. I will have a look first though to see if I've pulled off any wires leading to the brake light!

Many thanks

A2blue said:

Recently I swapped the buttons on my climate unit with black ones from an A4 B5 as described here on the forum - looks great.
Next trip, every time I apply the brakes, the radio loses its signal and returns to normal when you release the brake.

Anyone have an idea of what I've done?

Click to expand...

Hi,

does the radio loose signal momentarily when you press the brake pedal or for as long as the brakes are applied?

If it is momentarily then it could be interference caused by a worn brake light switch.

If it is all the time, then its caused by the application of the brake lights.
It could be interference caused by the lights themselves if you have non-standard (e.g. LED retrofit) brake lights.
Another cause could be a voltage drop due to a poor earth causing the radio signal amplifiers to loose power.

To test for the power loss issue, try turning on the rear window heater element and see if you loose signal when you do this? If the answer is yes then you have an earthing problem on the tailgate.
If the answer was no, it still could be an earthing problem if you have the diversity aerial. Try reverse gear as this turns on the reversing lights in the main rear light clusters which have a high power drain like the brake lights.

regards

Andrew