Kamron

I finished off the rear brakes this weekend on my Audi.

I also tracked down some poor radio reception issues to a cracked antenna booster (new one should arrive tomorrow), but the weird thing is that the antenna booster that is in there now is a mismatch to the head unit in my car. The part number indicates that it should be matched to a Audi Concert radio, not the Audi Symphony II Head Unit that was in the car from the factory (I've owned the car since new). I can only think of two possibilities:

(1) Audi put in the wrong antenna booster when the car was built (someone grabbed from the wrong bin on the assembly line)?

(2) The last place I had the car serviced swapped out a broken antenna booster with my working one?

You can replace the antenna booster with no tools in less than 2 minutes.

They are known to commonly break, and they are kinda stupid expensive for what they are.

Any thoughts anyone? Should I be avoiding the place I think could have swapped out a good part for a bad part?

sam_spider

Did the place you took it to have any business messing with the booster? Meaning, is it that accessible it was worth their time to swap it out.

sam_spider

It's more the issue they were still using that system in 2008. My dad had an X5 with the same system, useless if you're traveling out of state IMO as you can't even do a search. I think his X5 was an 02.

Kamron

No, I've never had any work done on the car that would be near the antenna booster or ever even reported poor radio reception issues to anyone. There is a panel at the rear of the headliner just adjacent to the top of the rear window, it just pops right off if you pull it (simply clipped into place), the antenna booster is right there, and it is also simply clipped into place, you just pull it out, unplug the three wires and the ground, plug in a new one, and pop it all back into place, could probably do it all in less than half a minute if I was in a big hurry. $300+ part in less than a minute??

sam_spider

Ouch $300?

How soon after you took the car there did you have problems with the radio?

ruexp67

It only has a problem if I am going to a location on the other side of the country. If I lived close to the mississippi, it would be an annoyance. Unless I plan to drive to TX or CA, it's not an issue. I can find locations in any state on this side of the country.

Kamron

I don't know, and that is a problem. The poor reception only shows up with the stations I typically listen to once I drive about 20 miles out of town (I really only listen to sports talk radio, and their tower is here in Southfield, I think). So, I didn't necessarily pick up on it right away, and then I lived with it for a while...and then I first pulled the radio because I thought maybe the antenna came unplugged back there... it was secure and I lived with if for a while longer...then I did some more research, and found out that the antenna boosters are prone to cracking, and finally this weekend I verified that indeed, my antenna booster is cracked in a couple places; so, I splurged on a new one...

That being said, I just realized there is a third, and possibly more likely, and more concerning possibility:

(3) Poor research on my part. (Part is correct for model year, radio type may not matter?)

ECS Tuning, who I've bought a lot of stuff from before and been happy, has the split in part numbers by concert vs symphony radios like I had originally thought: part number originally ending in "B" now revised in light of failures to "P" for symphony radios and part number ending in "D" now revised to "S" for concert radios. Problem is I have a "D" in my car now and a symphony radio, not concert radio??

...but, Genuine Audi Parts (GAP) has the split by model year and driveline (not radio type, but should driveline really matter??) 2002 (all) & 2003 (non-Quattro) part number "D" now revised to "S", and 2003 (Quattro)-2008 (all) part number "B" now revised to "P". (I own a 2002). What if GAP is right and ECS is wrong?

I have a "P" arriving tomorrow from ECS based on their information that it was the correct replacement for the booster based on both model year and radio...hopefully it works properly, otherwise their information is wrong, and I have to send it back and cite to them to GAP. It may not really matter anyway, they all might be the same thing...

sam_spider

I think I'd put it down to just a coincidence.

That's still a ton of money for an antenna booster. Damn.

ruexp67

Yeah, I'd get an iPhone adapter and stream my audio over the internetz rather than pay $300 to fix the antenna.

sam_spider

Except Kamron is a droid user