Focus DAB upgrade

[Geordie59]

After reading a guide on here I purchased a 2nd hand single CD DAB Ford unit and purchased the wiring leads and DAB aerial from Ford and carried out the swap over. All was good for a while and then the unit will cut out with the message CD drive fault and make a clicking sound, this happens if you are playing a CD or listening to the radio. Carried out the usual reset procedure by holding in the on/off button for 15 seconds and it will be fine until the same thing happens again! The strange thing is I stripped down the original unit and found the CD drive mechanism is exactly the same as in the DAB unit so swapped them over but still get the same issue. The CD drive in the original unit worked fine so I suspect it may be an issue on the electronic board of the DAB unit which is obviously totally different to the non DAB board. I'm just debating if I should buy another 2nd hand Ford DAB unit or go for an aftermarket one. Could anyone please tell me if I can use the upgraded aerial on an aftermarket unit? Also has anyone changed their's to an aftermarket double din? 

[Geordie59]

Anyone?

[FatHead1979]

Very few people on here will have spent their time taking apart one of the Ford factory fit head units, they're usually pretty poor features wise compared to a £50 Halfords special (which is the route I imagine many will take if their Ford factory unit starts to misbehave).

[Botus]

seems odd that the working drive doesn't want to behave in the later DAB unit, was the old one MP3 compatible?  maybe the firmware inside isn't matching what the DAB board expects and or you fitment was a bit ???

I was playing with a jeep where all the CD changers die at 8 years of age, lots think related to disconnecting the battery, but I think they just die.  One bod on fleabay repairs them, on the jeep was a reset procedure of holding eject or cd button for 10 second or something...

[Geordie59]

Thanks for the replies. Changing the drive over was very easy and nothing much to go wrong. The fact that both play up points I think to another issue that maybe the main board in the DAB unit has a fault. I've bought another DAB unit from eBay so hopefully it will be fine or I'll have to go down the aftermarket route. Told by a local installer the Ford aerial will be incompatible with aftermarket units though. He told me a new roof mounted one would be £80! Wondered if anyone uses a windscreen mounted one and are they ok?

[Scampa]

I bought a aftermarket Stereo for my MK 2 Focus, finding the windscreen mounts aren't very good very patchy at best, currently looking for a combined roof mounted one to replace, my FM reception isn't fantastic (common amongst fords). Problem I have is there is very little info about these last thing I want to do it buy one and find it wont work and I also don''t want to spend a fortune on one.

Considering this one  Combi Aerial not sure to go for one with a inline booster.

[FatHead1979]

On 5/28/2018 at 4:07 PM, Geordie59 said:

Thanks for the replies. Changing the drive over was very easy and nothing much to go wrong. The fact that both play up points I think to another issue that maybe the main board in the DAB unit has a fault. I've bought another DAB unit from ebay so hopefully it will be fine or I'll have to go down the aftermarket route. Told by a local installer the Ford aerial will be incompatible with aftermarket units though. He told me a new roof mounted one would be £80! Wondered if anyone uses a windscreen mounted one and are they ok?

I've been using a £15 Pioneer windscreen mounted aerial for about 9 months, if it's fitted properly i.e. so it's earthed I've found the DAB reception to be pretty good and the FM better than the crappy signal I had with the factory fit Ford roof mounted aerial.

I would so though that in my experience a windscreen mounted aerial is no substitute for a proper active roof mounted DAB aerial, in some areas with a weaker DAB signal I get signal drop outs where as the Focus hire cars I was driving a lot last year would hold onto the signal more often than not.