austinado16

Called the VW Dealer I used to work for. There are 9 of these Audi Bose Compact Cassette stereos in the country. My cost $215+tax each.

VW/Audi part number is: 4AO 135 092A

So, I removed mine and took it apart. The failure...causing mine not to turn on, or not to turn on intermittently, with lots of popping and crackling from the speakers...is the on/off/volume switch. Using a screwdriver to short either the switches contacts, or the 2 middle solder pins in the middle of the switch's circuit board, causes the radio to power up and work perfect.

I've sprayed electrical contact cleaner into the switch and blown it out, but no joy as a viable permanent fix...yet.

In lieu of finding a replacement switch I'm going to see if I can come up with something that will provide a little "force" in the area of the contacts and make switch function again dependably.

I'll keep you all posted.

austinado16

Well, I think it may be fixed. The on/off/volume switch is a stacked assembly of plastic housings and inside each housing is some function of the switch. Like a stack of pancakes.

The stack is held in tension by a metal strap that acts like a buckle. I undid the buckle folded a small piece of scotch tape and slid it in between the stacks. I did this on either side of the area where the on/off assembly is housed. Then I put the metal buckle back on.

So far, the switch and the radio are working 100% and there's no popping or cracking noise during function either.

paudi100

well, i'd disconnected my front speakers awhile back b/c of the failing amps and had gotten used to the radio turning itself on and off at random intervals. i was inspired by the instructions about the metal buckle-pancake-scotch tape solution to the on/off switch problem in the radio. sooo, i got the radio out and completely mangled that switch. perfect excuse for trying the aftermarket option. i picked up a sony cdx-gt100 for $100 at circuit city yesterday. it has the aux jack in front so i can plug my mp3 player in, plus the cd player. anyway, i got their recommended vw/audi wiring harness and will be taking it back tomorrow. the connectors don't match. i decided to just cut the necessary wires from the existing harness and splice them to the wires on the harness that came with the radio. i found that tagging the wires with labeled masking tape helped immeasurably as the day wore on. i initially tried to use the preamp outs for the rear speakers to avoid rewiring all the way back, but couldn't get the common ground business to cooperate. ended up running new wires to all four speakers, bypassing the speaker amps completely. i measured the bose speakers at 1.2 ohms each and the sony speaker outs called for 4 ohms, so i went to radio shack for a handful of 1 ohm resistors. i hooked 3 resistors in series for each speaker, to get the 4 ohms total apiece. the whole setup works great. not as inexpensive as the scotch tape i'd reached for, but i'm very happy that i was able to use the existing bose speakers including the front ones. the sound is very clean at any speed, thanks no doubt to the resistors. saw that tip on this forum somewhere. the red illumination on the radio works well with the dash lighting, and the blue lcd makes it look sort of like the newer audi dash panels. oh yes, the DIN was a perfect fit. no adapters or anything. slid right in perfectly flush. i'd hoped to spend that money toward a new center muffler, but now i can turn the stereo up loud enough that i don't hear anything else.
pg