Radio Problems.

JamesUK

JamesUK

Member
'Evening all,

Weird problem, that I'm hoping may have an easy solution...

Suddenly, my radio will not react to most controls. So, it's stuck on radio 1, it won't react to the volume knob. When I press the numbered buttons, they display the presets that I have, but doesn't change channel. To turn it off, I have to press off 3 times, very fast. Taking the key out of the ignition no longer turns the radio off.

Possible causes:

1. New phone craddle, which presses against the front of the radio (very unlikely I feel).
2. Using "Torque" Android app, which access the ECU. I also accidentally kicked the Bluetooth OBD out of its port (with ignition off). Stupid huh :o
3. Randomness.

Possible fixes:

1. Disconnect battery (although I don't have the radio code - if z4's have such a thing? My old e36 did, possibly my e46 too)
2. Dealer/BMW specialist
3. Remove radio - I'm concerned this fault could be draining battery too - only happened this evening.

Any help/advice/fixes appreciated!

Thanks

James

2003 z4 3.0
 
Hi James, welcome to the forum!

Have you spilt or splashed any liquids near the radio, used too much cleaner, or anything similar?
I once used a bit too much cleaner, a big drop of it landed in the joint between button and faceplate and instantly seeped deep into the works by capillary action. When the stuff dried it essentially shorted one button. The radio read this as a button being pressed and consequently almost every other button failed to work even though the problem was in one spot.

It's possible to disassemble the faceplate and clean the button contacts if this sounds like it could be a solution for you. I posted some tips about this procedure some time ago, you might be able to find it, if not let me know, I'll either find them for you or recreate them.

Other than that, I've no idea what could be the problem.
 
Hi, and thanks!

No, no liquids been near it....

I'm tempted to pull the battery -ve off, to try to reset the radio, and also incase its not really turned off at the moment (it looks off, but its behaving badly, so who knows)
 
Hi and welcome aboard James. Maybe you might get more responses if you get some pics and an intro up in the "Newbies" section? It's good forum etiquette :thumbsup:
 
Disconnect the battery for 30 minutes. There is no radio code. The only thing you will have to do is reset the clock and maybe reset the windows.
 
If anything electric stops working correctly in a weird way them disconnect the battery for 30 mins - should be writ large in caps in the manual as the first thing to try :D

I re-paired my phone the other day after the car 'lost' the pairing. 2 days later the car decided it didn't have a phone function at all anymore. All reference to it on the satnav display and settings just disappeared. Disconnected the battery as above, reconnected, and all of a sudden it gets it's memory back :roll:

Wish I could do the same to the wife when she changes her tune and tries to mess with my head...
 
"Power Cycling"; It's the first thing I try with computers, phones, Tv's, tablets..... and now it's my first port of call with the Z4! (in fairness, only happened once).

I'd still like to know whether it was caused by me kicking the bluetooth dongle out of the OBD port...
 
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