I’m about two weeks into owning a ’02 X5 4.4. So far it’s been a pretty decent vehicle, I had to address a spewing coolant reservoir, and will need to tackle a few other mechanical things. What I need help with is the entertainment/NAV system.

Issues


Radio: The Radio turns on and off just fine, trouble is about 50% of the time, the sound quality is awful and unlistenable (tinny, garbled, distorted, kazoo like). Power cycling the unit doesn’t change anything. You can only “reset” things by turning off the ignition, and turning it back on. I’ve dubbed it “Radio Roulette”. When it is working, it sounds alright, but I do notice some subtle volume variance on certain speakers.

CD Player: Readout says “No Discs”, in spite of the shuttle being full. There is power to the CD changer

GPS: When the GPS is turned on I can only see a naked map (just land mass, and water) no streets, or other details. There is power to the DVD drive in the rear, and it does have a disc in it.

Cassette: Not sure…Couldn’t find a cassette to test with.

Looking over the service history, it appears that this is a repeat issue. The PO had the Radio Bus replaced (P/N: 65-12-6-988-276) in May of ’08. I suspect that this may be the culprit again, but would affect all of the issues listed? I did pull both the Nav drive, and the CD changer to see if it might be a connection issue. I did the same to the RCM by the battery, but I only pulled the large 1” square plug to check the contacts, and everything looked OK.

Not entirely sure what to do from here. I’ve read that bad solder connections in the RCM are pretty common, and are sometimes repairable. I should mention that it is a DSP unit. I’m not a major audiophile, but would like an operable entertainment system. If this problem turns out to be an expensive PITA, I may opt to swap it out for a Hualagin (sp?).

Thanks in advance for the input.

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Current Rides:
2002 X5 4.4i (04/02 Build)
2004 M3 Conv.
2005 Suzuki V-Strom 650