Just picked up my 2004 Passat GLS with the Monsoon radio/cd player. The unit sound pretty good with a CD, but the FM/AM reception seems very weak and full of static.
Anyone else experiencing this or did I end up with a dud of a radio?
Thanks...
Leigh
Betcha there's either something wrong with the amplifier for the antenna (possible) or a loose connection between it and the head unit (likely). Back to the dealer for you ... BTW, AM reception on these radios is pretty bad, even considering the generally poor standard of AM reception these days.
sd
The sales guy did tell me (afterwards) that the AM reception was bad. The FM reception is spotty, but after driving my wife's 9-5 wagon yesterday on my usual route to work, that radio's reception wasn't as strong as I thought I remembered it to be either. So maybe the Monsoon reception is not as bad as I originally thought?
The sales guy did tell me that if you hold down the Mix button on the stereo during FM/AM play, that it goes into a diagnosis mode. Tried that and everything appeared to be working correctly including the antenna. Oh well, I usually listen to CDs anyhow.
Thanks...
FM should be good, but my wife complains that her Chevy/Delco cheap ass radio is 100 times better than the AM on my 99 Passat. VW's Am radio is not that great! All recent VW radios come from Clarion or Matishuta(SP?) a.k.a Japan!
Matsushita - aka Panasonic's parent conglomerate, they call themselves Panasonic so people can pronounce and spell the name ;-).
There's audio fidelity, which has more to do with amps and speakers, and there's sensitivity, which is all about the tuner. The tuner in the Monsoon, unfortunately, is nothing to write home about. Crippling it with a malfunctioning antenna makes it even worse. That said, the Monsoon in my '03 Wagon is miles ahead of the non-Monsoon I had in my
99.5 Jetta. _That_ was a piece of junk.sd
The Monsoon in our 2002 Passat GLS works fine. It's a very nice system. I am less impressed with the Monsoon in my daughter's 2003 Jetta GLS. Anyway, we live far away from any large population centers and the Passat radio picks up distant stations very well. Therefore, it is likely that either the Monsoon unit in your car or some other part of the system (antenna, cable) is defective.
Bill
78 Rabbit...10/77 - 4/02 82 Convertibles(s)...since 93 95 Golf GL...since 11/99 02 Passat 1.8T Tip GLS...since 4/02 (Remove the CAT to email me)
Just another data point - I've got the Monsoon in a 2003 Passat GLX. I live about 35 miles east of Manhattan, and sometimes my reception of NYC FM stations is borderline, but usually it's OK. I certainly have had better tuners, though - the one in my last car, a 2000 Saturn LS2 (that's the bigger one, not the little one, but I think they have the same stereos) had no trouble picking up NYC stations, even from longer distances. Then again, that car had a much larger antenna.
-- Mike Smith
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