X3 G01 - Bluetooth issues

[PearlJam]

I have the 2018 model. I started getting issues where the phone connection with music would seem if it doesn't connect fully with sound disappearing a re-appearing and over time when answering calls the sound does not transfer to the car and remains on the phone. Even manual switch to the car during a call does not work. Inbetween I had an issue late last year where the TCU (telematics) unit in the roof had to be replaced due to water damage. Not sure if the same water damage could've damaged anything else. At the moment it is very erratic whether I get call sound on that car, mostly when I phone out a bigger chance of working. Receiving calls is mostly not working.

Based on my investigation it seems there are 3 units at play here.

• HFP (Hands-Free Profile) – handles calls and the phone's connection status

• A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) – handles streamed music audio

• AVRCP – handles the metadata (track/artist name) and playback controls

What happens a lot these days is also the metadata would come and go during a drive. Sometimes stable, sometimes not. I have done the long reset (70 sec), removed all paired phones, pair my phone again. Phone is updated, no software update available for iDrive.

Any ideas on this or which company has the expertise to fault find and repair this? Failing which, I will have to go to BMW to check it out.

 

[Nastaliq]

You dont need BMW for this, you can flash your car with ISTA and the latest i-Step version available for your chassis which resolves most of these problems for me.
I had an issue where the car would only pair with my phone intermittently.

if i tried a force pair when entering, it would fail, but then pair randomly at some other point. This can be irritating because you dont ever know if calls will come through the phone or the car. worse is when you get a call through the car, then hang up and someone calls you back and it goes through the phone and NOT the car like it just did 5 mins ago.

very confusing.

After updating the istep all the issues were resolved because the firmware is overwritten with the latest stable build and contains the bug fixes required to fix many of these issues.

 

[Nastaliq]

You dont need BMW for this, you can flash your car with ISTA and the latest i-Step version available for your chassis which resolves most of these problems for me.
I had an issue where the car would only pair with my phone intermittently.

if i tried a force pair when entering, it would fail, but then pair randomly at some other point. This can be irritating because you dont ever know if calls will come through the phone or the car. worse is when you get a call through the car, then hang up and someone calls you back and it goes through the phone and NOT the car like it just did 5 mins ago.

very confusing.

After updating the istep all the issues were resolved because the firmware is overwritten with the latest stable build and contains the bug fixes required to fix many of these issues.

I Drive isnt the issue, its the firmware across the other modules and FEMs

 

[PearlJam]

You dont need BMW for this, you can flash your car with ISTA and the latest i-Step version available for your chassis which resolves most of these problems for me.
I had an issue where the car would only pair with my phone intermittently.

if i tried a force pair when entering, it would fail, but then pair randomly at some other point. This can be irritating because you dont ever know if calls will come through the phone or the car. worse is when you get a call through the car, then hang up and someone calls you back and it goes through the phone and NOT the car like it just did 5 mins ago.

very confusing.

After updating the istep all the issues were resolved because the firmware is overwritten with the latest stable build and contains the bug fixes required to fix many of these issues.

Thanks! I will google that a bit to find out more. Have not looked at ISTA before.

 

[Nastaliq]

Get an external drive, find a copy of ISTA and the relevant PSDZ files, get a OBD to usb cable on a windows machine, connect to car, read car, update istep, make sure car is plugged into a proper voltage maintainer (NOT a 12v battery charger). if you lose power to modules while flashing you can brick the modules.

It can take a few hours as it literally overwrites firmware to every module. once done it will re-read any fault codes, you can clear them and re-check.

For a once off situation probably easier if you go to someone who has everything and they can do it for you.

BMW will charge you 8 hours of diagnostics labour for this and you will cry.

 

[PearlJam]

Get an external drive, find a copy of ISTA and the relevant PSDZ files, get a OBD to usb cable on a windows machine, connect to car, read car, update istep, make sure car is plugged into a proper voltage maintainer (NOT a 12v battery charger). if you lose power to modules while flashing you can brick the modules.

It can take a few hours as it literally overwrites firmware to every module. once done it will re-read any fault codes, you can clear them and re-check.

For a once off situation probably easier if you go to someone who has everything and they can do it for you.

BMW will charge you 8 hours of diagnostics labour for this and you will cry.

Thanks yes. Had a look and it is a bit outside my comfort zone. I came across BMS which specialises with BMW not too far away from me in Honeydew. I will contact them later to see what they can do. Their reviews on google looks good.