Why would a car stereo only work properly in cold weather?

Soldato
Joined
4 Feb 2004
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Écosse
Bit of a strange one this. The wife has a little shopping trolley Peugeot 107 Urban. Absolutely not my cup of tea, but it's been uber reliable since we bought it a couple of years ago. However a strange issue has arisen with the radio/cd player. If the temperature is fairly normal or in the least bit what you could loosely term as 'warm' the radio doesn't work properly. As in, you can power it on but none of the buttons whatsoever work. Volume wont turn up or down, you can't change radio stations and the CD player buttons wont work either. All you can do is switch it on and off.

However - if its a freezing cold morning requiring the car windows to be scraped for example, the radio unit functions perfectly. For a few miles at least, until the interior temperature warms up. Bizarre to say the least. I removed it last month and stuck it in a sealed bag in the freezer for a couple of hours then refitted it and it worked perfectly for a week or so regardless of temperature. Then it went back to not working unless it was very cold.

Any ideas? Simple solution is just to purchase a pre-owned one from the 'bay as they are only about £40-£50 but it still puzzles me as to why it does this??!!. :confused:
 
Ive had something similar for a couple months. The ancient head unit in our Golf (c.2000) will play CDs when its cold, once everything is warmed up (5-10 minutes later) the CD skips.

Im blaming it on a worn out laser and ive found a replacement that i desperately want to get but cant quite justify the cost
 
I'd open it up and check there's no gunk between two solder points or a weak solder point.

Also, check on Peugot forums to see if it's a common problem (maybe with a fix), and a cheaper place than ebay to get a replacement would be a forum
 
Yeah, replacements are about £40 or so. Surely if it was a spring issue or a problem with solder it would manifest itself at all times, not just when it isn't freezing!!!??
 
Could be something like a cracked solder joint, or cracked resistor that only makes contact when it's cold due to contraction of the PCB.
 
Could be something like a cracked solder joint, or cracked resistor that only makes contact when it's cold due to contraction of the PCB.

Ah, I see how that could be possible, yeah. Time to just bite the bullet and grab a replacement then I think.
 
Sounds like the opposite problem of one of the trucks at work, no radio until it's warmed up then the radio works fine all day, I keep getting that truck!
 
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