SilverBullet

As others have stated this problem and the various possible causes are more fully discussed in another thread called 'No reception'. But, before you get into anything more complicated have a look through the manual for your new CD/Radio unit and see if there's a setting in the menus called 'Antenna power enable' or 'Antenna power on/off' or something similar - if there is, it's probably set to OFF. Try turning it ON and see if that fixes your problem.

Thanks for the follow up!

I can't comment specifically on Sony units but I'm 90 percent certain that the antenna adaptor units always work the same way - a filter circuit in the adaptor blocks DC power from reaching the radio's antenna input but allows the radio signal to pass from the antenna amplifier to the antenna input. It also picks up DC power from anywhere handy nearby - usually the 'Automatic Antenna Supply Output' terminal on the radio, because that terminal only outputs voltage when the radio is on - and sends it up the antenna wire to the amplifier. So no, I don't think your current adaptor is 'wrong', although of course it could be faulty. Couple of things to try before you spend money: Step 1: Check the radio is operating normally:- Pull the radio out of the dashboard but leave all power and speaker wires connected. Disconnect the adaptor from the radio and from the aerial and swing it safely out of the way for now. You can leave the adaptor's power wire connected to wherever it goes. Turn the radio on, and select a station you don't normally receive very well (a Medium Wave station, probably). Get a 4 foot long piece of insulated wire, bare 3mm from the end, trail the wire out in a straight line - dangle the end out of the window - and push the bared end into the inner/centre terminal on the radio's input socket. All we're doing here is connecting an old fashioned unamplified long wire / rod aerial directly to the radio's aerial input. If the radio is working normally you should get decent reception on all bands. If you don't, it's possible that there may actually be a fault on the radio. Step 2: Check the adaptor: Assuming step 1 worked, now remove the wire aerial you used for the last test and reconnect the adaptor to the radio's aerial input socket. Don't plug the original aerial back into the adaptor yet. Instead, push the bared end of your long aerial wire into the inner / centre terminal of the adaptor's aerial input socket - (be very careful not to bridge the socket inner to the socket outer with any stray wire ends). You should find that the radio receives well again, as before. This proves that the radio signal path through the adaptor is OK. Remove the long wire aerial again. If you have access to a voltmeter or multimeter connect the black lead on the meter to the adaptor's aerial input socket OUTER ring and touch the red lead on the meter to the adaptor's input socket INNER/CENTRE terminal. (The radio will burst into life again, as the red lead will act as another wire aerial). There should be a voltage present (nominally 12V, I think). This is the voltage which the adaptor sends up the aerial cable to power the amplifier in the base of the aerial. If it's not there, then either the adaptor is faulty or it is taking its power from the wrong place. If your radio works with a wire aerial directly connected to it, then works with a wire aerial connected to the socket on the adaptor, AND the adaptor is outputting voltage to the aerial, then you are looking at a faulty preamplifier in the base of the aerial, a faulty aerial cable or even just a faulty aerial.

Looking for a standard Arosa 'S' Mk2 alloy (four stud) to replace a suspected buckled one, or to use as a sensible spare if the suspect wheel turns out to be OK. Would consider a full set, but they would have to be pretty cheap, sorry. Only looking in North East (Middlesbrough, Wearside, Sunderland, Newcastle, Northumberland) area.

OK Petronille, I'm glad the signal filter sorted it out for you. (There's nothing wrong with Sony gear either).

1) Check all fuses intact? The main fusebox is behind the trapdoor just above the driver's side parcel shelf. There is also a fusebox on the top of the battery with a few very large value fuses in it. 2) Check the relays if you can. They are sited in a tray deep inside the dashboard more or less directly behind the main fusebox. If you remove the two screws which hold the fusebox in place you can push it inside the dashboard and then a little to one side or up or down, enough to shine a torch in so you can see the relays end-on. You'll see they all have large three digit numbers printed on them. Howevever, to actually get your hands on the relays you need to remove the horizontal plastic panel above the pedals, release the connector tray and cables you see above and swing them out of the way so you can get at the relays. Sometimes the relays just slowly wiggle their way out of the sockets over time - try pushing them all firmly back in. If one of them sinks back into place with a nice 'click', chances are that was what was causing your problem. Also the relay marked '109' (if fitted on your model) is notorious for going faulty, so if you do have a relay 109 and no other obvious fault, remove relay 109, pop the lid off and carefully examine the solder joints on the printed circuit board for cracks - especially very fine circular cracks around soldered pins/parts. Note all info re: Positions of fuseboxes / relays etc apply to my 1.4 Tdi, but I would imagine they will be in the same places on the MPi.

Very difficult to do. If it is on the left side of the car, disconnect the connections to the battery, loosen the fuse holder box and remove the big bolt and plate securing the battery so you can move the battery 10cm away from the light and make space for your hand to get in. Unclip the two silver clips at the top rear of the lamp assembly to release the rear cover from the lamp assembly and remove the rear cover. Notice that the bottom edge of the cover has two projecting parts which fit into slots in the lamp assembly. They will have to go back into the slots when you put the cover back on afterwards. Use a small mirror to look into the lamp assembly from behind. The bulb holder with the sidelight in it is just a tight clip-fit in position. If you squeeze the back ends of the bulb holder firmly together with your finger and thumb it will become slack enough to pull out. If it is the right hand sidelight then the procedure is the same, but you will not be able to make so much space behind the lamps to take the cover off and get your hand in. You can either put your hand in, or you can see in. Not both. You will have to work blind on this side. Because of this, if you have never worked on the front lights before I recommend you move the battery and look into the left side lights to see how everything is arranged on that side first, even if the faulty lamp is actually on the right hand side. Looking at the left one will give you some idea of what you are trying to get your hand onto on the right hand side.

Mk2 Arosa owners: If you've ever had to change one of the sidelights on your car you'll know that having done it once, you'll never ever want to have to do it again. Maybe I've just got clunky hands, but I can't get the left side one out without unbolting the battery and shifting it a couple of inches away from the light. Access to the right hand side one is just as restricted. I picked up some first-generation LED sidelights at a local motor factors a couple of years ago and they work OK, in so far as they come on and you can see that they are on, but the light output is probably not even one third as bright as the original 3W or 5W bulbs. I suspect it'll have difficulty passing its next MOT unless I put something brighter in. Anyone know where I can get some decent substitute sidelight bulbs? (High-Power LED, not conventional lamp bulbs).

I had a problem like this for a long time, but eventually solved it. When originally sold, my Arosa S Tdi had a basic Grundig radio in it. The one previous owner of my car had that original Grundig radio replaced with a SEAT-supplied and fitted Grundig Radio/CD unit. For several years, the FM reception was never quite as good as I thought it should be, and I couldn't get anything on Medium Wave or Long Wave at all - just buzzing and noise. Eventually, I decided to look and see what the problem was. Basically, it was this: The original radio supplied power to the aerial amplifier in the base of the aerial by sending power up the same wire as the radio signal was coming down. The after-fit Radio/CD supplied and fitted by SEAT did NOT have this facility to line-power the aerial amplifier (SEAT should have realised this) and so for all of that time the radio had just been working with what it could pull through the unpowered amplifier. FM only needs a relatively short aerial so I was still able to get some FM reception, but MW and LW need either a long aerial or a strongly amplified short aerial, and that's why MW and LW weren't working. Halfords (and presumably others) sell a little adaptor which looks like a short metal tube which goes inline with the aerial, inserted between the plug on the end of the aerial cable and the aerial socket on the radio. A flying power lead on the adaptor obtains power for the aerial amplifier from the 'Automatic Antenna' output terminal on the radio. There's a little bit of circuitry in the tube which ensures that the aerial amplifier power only goes up the aerial wire to the amplifier, not into the radio. Since fitting this the radio has been working brilliantly the way you'd expect from something made by Grundig, who have a long tradition of making very good radio receivers. If you're having a similar problem it may be that your particular radio does actually have the ability to line-power the aerial amplifier, but it may just be turned off in the radio's configuration menus. (On a new radio, it is normally 'off' by default). If so, you don't need an adaptor - just turn the aerial/antenna supply feature 'on' in the radio's menu. If your radio (like my Grundig) really doesn't have the ability to line-power the amplifier in the aerial base, then the adaptor is your answer.

Roger, no apparent conclusion to your thread but you've probably solved it by now? For what it's worth I've had the following progressive problems with my 01 Arosa S Tdi, starting around Dec 2010. In one instance (only) the symptom was exactly like yours. 1) Engine, which had never missed a beat before 140,000 miles, occasionally died and then came back to life before I had time to react. Had the fuel filter changed. 2) February 2011, driving along a country road and suddenly the engine is dead and oil warning light flashing and warning beeper sounding. (Just like your problem). I turn ashen grey, coast to a stop in neutral thinking my engine has seized, check the oil. Plenty of oil. That's Odd. After looking around, can see no obvious problem, get back in car and start it. It starts and runs normally, does so for a couple of weeks. 3) Then, engine dies again - no oil warning light this time - and this time won't start. Seems like a fuel starvation problem, although I have plenty of fuel. AA man comes out and starts it by squirting fuel vapour into the intake, on the theory that the electric lifter pump in the tank may have failed. We expect it to conk out again as soon as it has burnt the squirt, but it keeps going as though nothing has happened. I drive to my destination without any further incident. 4) About a week later the car dies again, again won't start, seems like fuel problem. AA man called out this time finds that the fuel filter is empty and is sure that the tank pump or tank pump relay must be faulty. He tows me to a SEAT dealer within range. I expect them to change the tank fuel pump and the relay, but instead (to my amazement) they tell me that they found the IN and OUT tubes on the tank pump/sender the wrong way around. They can't understand how it's been running at all. They are convinced this was the problem and don't do anything else. As bizarre as this was, I know that the tank and pump have not been touched since about 2006 when I was half asleep one dark winter morning and put the wrong fuel in. It's been working perfectly for most of the time since then. Something else must have changed recently to be causing the problem I'm having now. 5) The day after this work and conclusion, the car dies at busy lights. Luckily it restarts. Now fed up, I start researching this problem on the internet. It seems VW group Tdi engines are particularly prone to failure of a relay which is usually involved somewhere in the fuel / engine management system - this is the infamous 'Relay 109'. Armed with this new (to me) information I delve into the relay panel (On the Lupo/Arosa this is deep down behind the fusebox which is beneath and slightly to the right of the steering wheel. You get to it by removing the horizontal plastic panel above the pedals). Relay 109 is there but turns out to be exceptionally loose in its socket. I pull it out anyway and examine it internally by popping the lid off - it's just a snap fit. The relay is built on a printed circuit board and I find that there's a near-invisible ring-shaped crack in the solder all the way around one of the coil pins. If I put a little pressure on the pin it moves freely in and out, making the crack even more obvious. In short, it's a miracle it's been working at all. I resolder all the solder connections on the relay PCB, put the lid back on it and put it back into the socket. It still seems a bit loose in the socket. I reach up behind the relay socket tray and put pressure on it from behind while I push with the other hand. It goes KER-LLLICKKK!, and now it feels much more solid. I suspect it's never really been plugged in properly. Put everything back together, it runs nicely and that's how things stand at the moment, but I won't know if it is fixed until I have driven it for a few weeks without any problems. There's still a question over the tank fuel pump - it doesn't sound as loud as it used to say, 6 months ago when I always noticed it priming as I turned the key. It's probably been fed up with having fuel sucked through it the wrong way for 60,000 miles or so, so I may still have to change it anyway. In the meantime I've ordered a brand new relay 109 and also relay 167, which I believe is the fuel pump control relay. I'll put those in and see how it goes. Anyway - If you're having any kind of intermittent running problem with a VW group Tdi engine, Relay 109 seems to be a good place to start.