No Bluetooth Audio and Phone - Blown Fuse, Plz help!

[NickMarch1978]

Hi All,

Just registered and posting hoping that someone might be able to shed some light on the following and offer some help:

Background:
2010 BMW X5 E70 MSport (UK) CIC iDrive
Paired phone (iPhone 7 plus) when I bought the car in August 2018, picks up phone automatically as expected (the happy days) and continued to do so for about 18 months.

Then at some point in the last 4 - 6 months Bluetooth for audio and phone pairing becomes intermittent. sometimes it automatically finds my phone and sometimes it does not!

Now phone and car never pair at all for audio or telephone whether automatic or forced i.e. looking to pair phones again from scratch.

Having done some Internet research I tried a couple of easy things:
1) Deleting all unusual characters from contacts and removing the '+' symbol on international numbers - I found this on a forum and YouTube video and was desperate to try anything.
2) Checked the fuses.

Upon checking the fuses (in the boot) I noticed two things:
1) The fuse rated a 5, in position 110 was blown (see the fuse circled red in 'Fuses.jpg', apparently this covers the following - see 'fuse110.jpg'.
2) The relay circled in green, on the same fuseboard - see 'Fuses.jpg' is very hot, even after the car has been off and stationary for a while.

I thought great I'll just replace the fuse in position 110 and I'll be good to go, WRONG, it immediately frazzled another fuse.

So now I'm thinking OK let's check the items (where applicable) that fuse 110 manages, now the only thing I can check are the luggage compartment lights and they are both corrosion free and bulbs still in place and not blown. So this is where I run into problems... I'm not a car electronics expert, not even close, so I don't know what to do next, so if anyone has any ideas please do let me know..!

In the meantime I've ordered a box of spare fuses and a mini OBD fault finder thingy, I think this was out of desperation as having audio from my phone to the car is very big deal for me.

Also, I've disconnected the battery for the length of time it takes me to write this - about 30 mins and then I'm going to reconnect, reset the computer and see if I can insert a new fuse without it blowing, this is me hoping that there has been some kinda ECU / ULF bug and it just wants "turning off and on again!"

One other thing that I think is coincidental, but I got myself an Apple Watch about the same time this started happening but I have tried testing this theory by not wearing my watch in the car or switching the watch off and it made no difference, however the 'damage' might already have been done. Also I just wanted to mention everything in case someone goes "Ahhhh" we've heard this before.

Any help at all GREATLY appreciated.


Cheers, Nick