My 2004 Audi A4 Convertible's radio antenna is damaged or broken. How can I access the antenna to repair it? Is there a schematic published or available anywhere online that would show how the audio wiring is run throughout the vehicle?
You can fix it yourself. The stealership wants 1500 for diagnostics and replacement. The harness is about $200 at VW. The cabs have a design defect that Audi will not acknowledge nor repair. Here is how you fix it yourself. You need to open the trunk and look at the rubber wire protector on the left side between the trunk and the lid. See picture posted. You don't have to remove any liners. Pull the rubber out of the top and very gently pull it down as far as you can exposing the antenna wires. Remove the black soft wrap
Red_dog --- Your post on the Audi antenns fix appears to be truncated and end with " Pull down the black soft wrap " There most be a next step - ????
yes with power off you want to find the broken part. it will be close to the part of the cable cover the=at just comes out of the lower trunk part. Once you find the break you will skin back the insulation, peel back the wire shield then remove the white plastic then expose broken core. you can solder the broken end inline after you place an outer core heat shrink and an inner core heat shrink. solder the inner core then heat shrink. Solder the shield then heat shrink and check the radio I had two broken wire and now I have working XM FM and AM.
I can confirm that this is the exact problem I had. I made a small slice in the rubber tubing for easier access once I had found the kink... cut where the kink was, cut back the black plastic, then the steel enforcing wires until i got through to the white wire, cut through the white wire at the point of the kink to reveal the broken copper wire, used a bit of copper wire i had lying around to plat around the break at each end (as the wire would have been too shortened) carefully taped up each section with insulation tape, pushed it back in to the rubber tubing, used black insulation tape around the rubber tubing so you can barely notice anything has been done, and hey presto, radio is working great.... took about 20-30mins.... dont particularly see the point in soldering etc as surely these points of solder would be susseptable to breaking?!?! you my all my version a bodge job but works great now....
p.s. before you tape it all up/solder etc...make sure its actually working again and that youve found the right point!
This is very helpful as I have the same problem. I cannot see a "kink" and there are four or five black wires and one beige. Is there a way to identify the bad wire. There is definitely a short as when I move the bundle, the radio picks up the station.
Have tried to repair antenna wire as suggested. Still does not work correctly. The radio wire also has a small break in it and I will probably repair it too. Have unplugged both wires from the antenna booster and the radio sounds better until the car moves. Now what? May replace the booster. By the way, this is not your normal coaxial cable with one copper wire. This is copper stranded wire and normal coaxial cable connectors do not work. Finally twisted the wire strands together and secured with a wire nut. Tried the soldering, didn't work.
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