[Pugger]

Had my screen changed by the dealers yesterday, had an intermittent problem where the screen would go bright red, flicker or go blank completely. Considering the pro sat nav is a £2500 option I wasn't best pleased. Luckily my wife managed to video the problem as he dealer was not able to recreate it when they had the car. They duly changed the screen and I had the car back yesterday. After parking the car up for a couple hours, got back in started her up to be faced with a bright red screen. It flickered slowly back to life and settled down to normal after a minute. I managed to grab a low quality picture, so at least they know I'm not dreaming this. The dealer is now stumped and has admitted they nor BMW technical know what the problem is. I'm awaiting a response from the dealers but to be honest I don't know what to do next. It’s a massive irritation for car we blew as huge amount of saving’s on and a car we were looking forward to so much.

[Harplayr]

Do they have lemon laws where you live?

[Want the thrill]

Wow Pugger, that sucks! I'd be pissed and so disspointed! Did they only change out the screen or did they also change out the wiring? I would think the screen wouldn't be the problem but the wiring/control panel might. Keep us posted on what happens.

[X5plug-in]

Surely there must be a video tech on here to advise? If not the screen (which has been replaced) and if the screen does work eventually you have to think it is either the power supply or the feed from the memory system booting up / warming up. So annoying. Sorry for your news Pugger. Will be interested to see what compensation is offered. Take the problem to HQ as I am sure they dont want to see your demon car on Watchdog.

[Bustofa]

Wow, Pugger, I really feel for you - I know how much of financial commitment the car represents when you are funding yourself.
Worrying that the BMW boys are stumped. Now I'm no expert but I have been in computers nearly as long as Babbage and my guess would be that if not the screen, I would be wondering whether the video chips are working OK or perhaps there is a dry joint somewhere.

[Pugger]

We don't have the lemon laws as such, but I could dump the car back with the dealer and tell them I want my money back. This normally will end up in a legal bust up as I've allowed they to try and fix the problem. With regards to the wiring, I'm pretty sure they didn't touch it. The problem happens pretty infrequently, but it does happen. There no rhyme or reason to it. In the main it seems to occur on start up although it has occured driving along. To be honest I just wanted it sorted, I don't want money off etc, as sonner or later it will fail altogether and that will really cost to fix and at my expense no doubts. Will talk to the dealer tomorrow, I have no idea what he's going to propose.

[walendvay]

video card problem, maybe? Or maybe a driver problem? When they replaced the screen, did they also replace the whole brains to the NAV unit (i.e. cpu, video card, etc). The system is essentially a CPU. The fact you have something intermittent, I'd guess it's a hardware problem that may be aggravated by temperature. I'd suggest the dealer replace the CPU/hard-drive unit for iDrive....that is, if the video adapter portion doesn't reside alongside of the NAV screen.

[skier219]

Could be a pinched cable going to the screen, or a bad video driver circuit. They need to start replacing parts upstream of the screen until the problem goes away.

Having seen many buggered laptop displays that were due to a pinched cable or bad cable connector, my money would be on that. Especially if there's a red, green, or blue color shift. LCDs have a red, green, and blue stripe in each pixel, and they are blended to create the pixel's color (all on for white, all off for black, and every RGB shade in between). If you see a pure red, green, or blue color associated with a video defect, it generally means the other two components are not being passed along for some reason.

[DJ Daddy-O]

Sorry pugger to hear that the issue still exists. I self funded my car too and hate to think of things going wrong as it needs to last a long time.

I have had a slightly different screen "issue". Twice as I have been sat at the traffic lights it has switched off and rebooted. Strangest thing is that it happened at the very same traffic lights when I was in PRECISELY the same spot (and I mean within half a metre!). No sign of any problems at all apart from this.

Clearly some sort of transmission is taking place around there that interferes with the screen.

I know some people originally suggested your case might be interference and this is clearly not the case. But very strange indeed.

Ps don't take offence if I ever call you puffer but my predictive text nearly caught me out!

[Pugger]

Thanks for all the replies and possible causes. I have posted these to the dealer. They are as frustrated as me and are now in the hands of BMW technical, hopefully they will sort something out ASAP.

[acey81]

Sorry to hear that. Not only do you have to wait 6 months to a year, and when it finally arrives it's broken... Gutted for you.

[turbotoy4me]

Sorry to hear about that. I have one on order and hope they have some of the bugs worked out by now.

[NYC_340i]

I remember seeing a thread about another person with this problem. I will be if he came up with a solution.

[Pugger]

Well the Car has been in again and this time they changed the comms unit, what ever that was. Luckily I was away on holiday for 2 weeks and didn't require the car anyway so the dealer had plenty of time to talk through it with BMW technical. So far finger crossed it's worked fine, but it did that previous.
One other thing I have noticed, if you leave the screen on the radion station setting and scroll to the last station on the list does anyone's list jump upwards every now? I haven't explained it will, but basically the list jumps upwards.

[sfax]

I have noticed something odd on the radio (DAB) where I always leave it on one station but when you look at the dash and scroll, it starts at the top of the list rather than at the station you are currently listening to. Not sure if this is the same thing that you are referring to

[Want the thrill]

Originally Posted by Pugger

Well the Car has been in again and this time they changed the comms unit, what ever that was. Luckily I was away on holiday for 2 weeks and didn't require the car anyway so the dealer had plenty of time to talk through it with BMW technical. So far finger crossed it's worked fine, but it did that previous.
One other thing I have noticed, if you leave the screen on the radion station setting and scroll to the last station on the list does anyone's list jump upwards every now? I haven't explained it will, but basically the list jumps upwards.

I think this is normal as mine does this too. For the longest time I kept catching it out of the corner of my eye and wondering what the heck it was doing. After sitting in traffic and being able to watch it, the screen "bumps" the list of stations (sometimes a new one will appear, other times one will go off the screen). It looks like the screen is jumping when you catch it out of the corner of your eye.

[tagz]

Originally Posted by sfax

I have noticed something odd on the radio (DAB) where I always leave it on one station but when you look at the dash and scroll, it starts at the top of the list rather than at the station you are currently listening to. Not sure if this is the same thing that you are referring to

I get this not only on the radio but also on the iPhone play as well.. It starts right at the top of the list of the albums!

[sfax]

Originally Posted by tagz

I get this not only on the radio but also on the iPhone play as well.. It starts right at the top of the list of the albums!

Yep, I get this too. Awful programming and yet more evidence that iDrive was designed by someone who has never used an mp3 player. And don't get me started on playing album tracks alphabetically....

[tagz]

Originally Posted by sfax

Yep, I get this too. Awful programming and yet more evidence that iDrive was designed by someone who has never used an mp3 player. And don't get me started on playing album tracks alphabetically....

yeah... such a pain in the a**

[Pugger]

Originally Posted by Want the thrill

I think this is normal as mine does this too. For the longest time I kept catching it out of the corner of my eye and wondering what the heck it was doing. After sitting in traffic and being able to watch it, the screen "bumps" the list of stations (sometimes a new one will appear, other times one will go off the screen). It looks like the screen is jumping when you catch it out of the corner of your eye.

Thats exactly what happens and I also caught it out of the corner of my eye. I'm glad this happens elsewhere as I was wondering if it had something to do with the problems I have had with the screen. Thanks for the reply. Sfax, its not quite the same, but the problem you have is the same on the Ipod touch when connected. By the way I went to Sfax in Tunisia whilst I was on Holiday!

[sfax]

Originally Posted by Pugger

By the way I went to Sfax in Tunisia whilst I was on Holiday!

I was conceived there

[Max1Factor]

Lol Some say...... There are 17 reasons why he is not allowed to return to Tunisia. All we know is..... He's called the Sfax