Concert Audio System Dead
 

So, this is my first post about my recent acquisition, a 2000 A8, 2.8 S-Line. So far, I'm very impressed with it, the build quality, the drive and the condition but, inevitably for an old car, there are some issues. The most frustrating one for me is the lack of audio. I was verbally assured before buying the car that everything worked, "including the radio" but when I turned up to collect it, he claimed that it had just "blown a fuse". Although having sounds is important to me in a car, I didn't think it was worth arguing too much about a dead radio which, in my experience, is rarely something too complicated to fix.

It's a Concert system with a CD changer in the boot but it's completely dead. No display, no audio "pop" on start up/turn off and inserting a cassette does nothing either. I also looked at the fuse panel by the driver's side footwell but there seems to be no fuses for the radio there. I was referred to the boot by a thread on this forum, to look for one of about 6 fuses. However, I only seem to have one fuse there, not 6.

After a further rummage today, I found a couple of stray cables behind the radio, which had obviously been messed about as they had those Halfords "clip-to-make-contact" type plastic connectors and there is a yellow wire that may well have been cut. I didn't have time today but I'm going to take a multimeter to this tomorrow to see if it's live. Apart from that, the car seems really stock and straight so I don't think there's been too much messing about with it over the years and I'm hoping that this is something simple or, worst case scenario, the Concert unit is dead and I simply need to replace it.

In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas as to why the unit is completely dead, I would be very thankful to hear them. I'm also hoping that I have a Bose system as that was one of the things that attracted me to an Audi.

Welcome. You can fit a Concert from an A6 if you change the front panel so the head units are pretty common. You do (IMO) need to look up how to adjust the hidden EQ to get an A6 HU to sound OK in the A8 though, but that's also helpful for general sound improvements. A spare HU with the code is perhaps a good thing to have even if it turns out your hacked harness is your root cause. So if you are still stuck after checking your fuses and wiring I suggest getting a spare HU from a part-out or the like, it should be cheap as chips.

IMO the Bose part, which I think is outboard of the HU, is nothing special but the stock A8 audio is pretty decent once tweaked to your taste and you can add aux or BT via the CD changer port.

Cheers,
-Joel.

Thanks Joel, I've been looking for a cheap, known working unit to test first, then I'll know better what's going on. When you say "hidden EQ" do you mean only accessible with special codes, is it hidden under multiple sub-menus or is it physically hidden in the car? I'm disappointed to hear that the Bose is nothing special, now I'm wondering if I should just go straight to an aftermarket setup and not bother trying to get the Concert going at all?

Thanks for the reply.

Yes google for it, there is a page on accessing the hidden EQ via some button presses. Similar to accessing the diagnostics in the HVAC head (also handy).
It's not a bad idea to print these pages out and add them to your owner's manual, particularly the HVAC one as you can access a hidden voltmeter via the HVAC.

Wow! A hidden voltmeter, I love things like that! Thanks once again, I'm off to do some searching.

There is also a single fuse in the back of the radio. Mine blew when it got wet.

Yeah, thanks, that was the first thing I tried but that fuse was fine. I'm still puzzled as to why my car does not have the 5 or 6 fuses in the boot as that seems to be where the other radio fuse is located. I didn't get a chance today with the multimeter, hopefully tomorrow.