Mk3 nav dead?
 

I recently had to replace the battery in my '02 X5. I know from reading that this is a common complaint, but everything worked fine prior to the battery dying, now I've got radio, a blank screen and no nav system. I was trying to reload the O/S yesterday, and after burning the image in mode2 using imgburn I opened the trunk and noticed that the eject button on the system lights up, but there is no light on the power led. I went ahead with the procedure, waited until the eject light turned off, unhooded the cables, waited 15 minutes, rehooked the cables and inserted the disk, turned the key to position 1 and I could hear the system accessing the disk (or at least trying to) in burst for about ten minutes but nothing came up on the screen.

I think the system must be dead, but why would the system access the disk if I don't get any power light on the system LED? After my failed attempt the system returned the disk with no problems.

Corrupted flash memory, happens when battery disconnected exactly at the same time when nav is writing data to flash memory.

NEVER disconnect battery until nav red light is OFF.
If blinking, nav is still on
If rapid blinking, nav is writing to flash (the dangerous time!)

Only way to restore nav now is to send to VDO factory in Wetzlar Germany for reflashing.

Alternatively, replace with Mk4.

I am in midtown. Where are you?

same problem what's the cost of repair?
 

I have the same problem. repeated dead battery events ended up killing the cd based nav system. What is the cost and contact info for the repair? thanks for any help and insight.
Todd

Can be repaired at the VDO/Siemens repair center in Wetzlar Germany, for around 100 Euros, plus shipping.