[V8] Bose Radio failure

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Ricky:  My head unit is completely dead.  I pulled it out of the dash on advice of listers here looking for another in-line fuse but seriously doubt there is one, now that I found the head unit has a fuse built into its back.

So, my conclusion is that the head unit is internally dead.  If your radio lights up but does nothing other than that, I would suspect an internal failure of some sort.  Have you tried all of the radio controls to see if they do anything.  You might try stuffing a cassette into the slot to see if the radio reacts to that also.

This is the first radio failure I have ever experienced in any car I have ever owned that had OEM radio equipment.  I have never even had a pixel go dark in the face of any of the OEM radios I had in the past. That being said, this is the first time that I have had a twenty-two year old radio head  or a twenty-two year old car for that matter.  

Now, it will get pretty interesting.  We had to replace the Bose head unit in my wife’s 100CS not long after we bought that car in 2001.  We got a factory reman unit from Audi in that case, but that radio failed about a week later after we had driven to Florida.  I went to a local radio shop in Boca Raton, I think it was, and bought a Nakamichi head unit and had it installed.  I plays through the Audi/Bose speakers very well and has worked generally well since that day.  It’s a CD player also, so it makes up for what the wagon didn’t have to begin with.  I am thinking I might do the same thing here, given the availability of new, old stock Nakamichi radios on eBay at not bad prices.  

The alternative is to send the Bose headunit out to have it repaired.  There used to be places that did this sort of thing, and I imagine there still may be.  I haven’t looked.  I used a cassette connection for an old Sony Walkman for CD in the car before which worked well, and the Bose head unit is the only one I know of that looks like it belongs in the dash.  

First though, I will probe the electrical outlets in the plugs that were in the back of my radio to see if anything there is actually live.  If there is no power coming TO the radio, then there will be a problem in somewhere in the dash board between the fuse in the fuse panel and the radio, which I find almost impossible to believe could happen. 

I am betting my radio head unit has failed.

Roger

For what it is worth, the Bose speakers were rebuilt by the company that I bought the car from in Pittsburg three years ago.  I know the Naka head unit can be plug and play with them.

Oh, yeah, the availability of car stereo repair shops here in Maine is of two varieties.  Slim to very few, and all are either 50 to 175 miles away.  Not good.


From: Ricky Joshi 
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 2:36 PM
To: Roger M. Woodbury 
Cc: V8 at audifans.com 
Subject: Re: [V8] Bose Radio failure

Roger does it still light up?  My unit is lighting up (the dash lights part) but there is no reaction when I twist the dial to turn it on...any ideas?  Thanks!  I figure you might have some experience with this.

Ricky


On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Roger M. Woodbury <rmwoodbury at fairpoint.net> wrote:

  While I was waiting for my wife to finish with her appointment this morning, I pulled the Bose radio head unit out of its slot.  This time I unplugged it completely and looked at it from all sides, finding a 5 amp fuse in the back of the radio.

  I removed the 5 amp fuse and naturally, since it was pouring rain and I was comfy, dry and warm in the driver’s seat, I dropped the 5 amp fuse down between the driver’s seat and the console.  Not to worry:  I had a package of fuses in the glove box, popped one in, replugged the unit and found.........NOTHING.

  I will play around with my handy-dandy electric probe later, but I suspect my Bose head unit has died....unless there is yet another fuse inline, which makes NO sense to me whatsoever.  Unless an over abundance of inline fuses was what caused the price of these cars to be so high originally.

  Roger
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