Poor aerial reception 2008 focus HELP!!!

[gibbo1471]

Hi all I have owned my car for around 3 years but it has always suffered from poor radio signal it is the standard ford radio if I try and search for a channel it won't automatically pick it up is there any common faults etc. Thank you focus 2008 1.8tdci 

[isetta]

have you checked the aerial plug is correctly connected to back of radio?  have you checked the connection at the base of the aerial?

I had a mk1 focus with this problem (it just went like it one day during my ownership, extremely poor reception, but CD still worked perfectly). could find nothing wrong with radio connections, I borrowed a spare ford radio from someone and tried it, it was fine, so I bought a replacement 2nd hand one for my car and it was fine, so in my case it was the radio itself.  I did take mine apart and looked inside and could not visually see anything wrong. Mk1 would not be same model radio was yours.

[DaveT70]

Hi,

Try turning "AF" off in the radio menu first.

Then check for corrosion on the earth point for the antennae  (behind the front courtesy lamp)

After that the FM has gone down on your radio

[Botus]

remove the interior light (pop front nearest screen down first) and undo the silly screw that holds the "early design" aerial wire to the roof....    its a bonkers design (that's the wrong size) and it shorts the coax shield to the actual antenna, stopping it from functioning as an Ariel.  I ground down the screw head diameter by 0.5mm so its small enough for it not to short out and it works

it should be noted the signals are insufficient and its an crap aerial even when its not shorted out.

later cars had a different antenna base (plus aerial rod and wiring), you can actually fit the original wires on early cars to the later antenna base.... but you need to make up a special "long nut" to get the job done and not short it out the way ford did it on your car.  I used a brake caliper bleed nipple a lathe and a 4 mm tap. 

[Botus]

a picture showing how to cure the broken antenna you've had since the day it was built - just like mine !!!!

and another post how to get at the screw....