Audio Problem
 

I've been experiencing a bit of a strange audio problem for the last few days. I was driving home from the airport and I suddenly lost all audio. CD player, PDC, Phone, Nav, Radio all refused to work. However when my wife phoned me should could hear me even though I could not hear her.

Occasionally over the weekend, I had the audio come back, but for no more than 2-3 minutes and then it died again. I've booked it in to the dealer, but they can't provide me with a loan car for two weeks! So I have to put up with it to then.

Anyone got any ideas? I suspect software error.

I gather the controls stopped responding when you say you "lost" everything. The Nav did stay lit up?

My bet is it's hardware, not software. Sounds like a controller or something with the central bus in the X5.

Yep, screen output is fine. Just the audio is gone. Reading around on the various E60 boards, suggests that it might be a bad TCU. Unfortunately I am now in Finland, so cannot test this until I get back home on Friday!

anyone know the cost of software re-program (fixes) when out of warranty? They even re-programmed because my door handle lights were staying on... seems like that's the solution to most glitches.

Unfortunately BMW dealerships cannot fix a software glitch without re-programming the whole car. Either they reprogram everything or nothing.
Within warranty, typically BMW pays the dealer for 1-2 hrs reprogramming labor. So ideally it should not take more than that. But dealers usually charge the customer for up to 6-8hrs for out of warranty cars. Reprogramming a car can also sometimes fry electronic components.
I suggest if your car is out of warranty, go to the nearest independent BMW service center. These workshops use Autologic and other diagnostics to resolve software issues. It will work out much cheaper.

This happpened to me on my 2008 M3 a few times. Complete loss of audio including warning chimes and all audio. They updated the software in the car, and the problem went away ... go figure !!

I have a problem with my I drive screen going blank from time to time also. It's been to the dealer twice and they can't find the problem.

Craig

well it's not the TCU - pulled the fuse on it at the weekend, and the problem didn't go away. So jsut have to wait for the dealer to diagnose it next monday.

Well, back from Dealer and now Xena is speaking to me. They unplugged everything, plugged it back together and hey presto! It all works now.

Glad it is working again :)

My wife had something similar happen - she couldn't get the radio or iPod to work - so she called me on the BT - but the audio did not work on her end, but I could hear her speaking and the iPod working which is strange because it usually pauses during phone calls. Has only happened once though. Once the car was turned off and back on everything was normal.