E91 poor radio reception

[SlowV6]

Hello All,
I was wondering if anyone could help please.
A few weeks ago I lost radio reception in our 2008 e91. The iDrive is all fine, sat Nav works, CD works, aux works etc. It is just poor radio reception to the point it is virtually white noise.

There are two metal foil strap things that I think could be earths (?) that look like they should connect to the hinges. Both these foil things appear broken. Could these be the cause of my lost radio and if so are they a pig to replace? My local specialist doesn't seem too interested in investigating (prefers the front end of the car I think).

I am in the Poole area if anyone has any recommendations btw.

Thanks in advance.

[Fore Left]

Don't really know the E91 but, I presume like my E90, it uses the HRW as the aerial so it could be that they're the feed back into the body. Could you bridge them with some wire to see if reception improves?

Might also be the diversity module. This is failing in mine so the harder the HRW is working the worse the radio reception. I don't listen to the radio much in winter.

[SlowV6]

Had a fiddle with the boot whilst waiting for the kids to get themselves out the door ready for school this morning. I think I may have a broken wire(s) as when I wiggled the far right hand side rubber ducting that goes from body of car to boot the radio came back to life for a bit. Further wiggling caused reception to go again (sadly).

I wonder if I have to be brave and slice into that rubber ducting and see what is in there. Guess something like a butt connector might work if I could find the break?

[Elliot2000]

U don’t need to slice the rubber boot - just pull it out from either end. U will probably see a few broken wires and if u have the speakers in the roof u can remove them for easier access to the wiring

[RocknRollOutlaw]

I've exactly the same issue in my recently acquired E91, cut into the rubber thing and found no broken wires. Glued it back up and discovered that I only have terrible radio reception when the ignition is on. After some research I believe it is due to the LED bulbs for the angel eyes which I reckon a previous owner has swapped for some cheap ultra bright ones with poor shielding. Apparently they give off loads of RF interference so I've got some ferrite core clip on things to try and fix it, I'll have a go tomorrow.

[CB 987]

SlowV6 said:

Had a fiddle with the boot whilst waiting for the kids to get themselves out the door ready for school this morning. I think I may have a broken wire(s) as when I wiggled the far right hand side rubber ducting that goes from body of car to boot the radio came back to life for a bit. Further wiggling caused reception to go again (sadly).

I wonder if I have to be brave and slice into that rubber ducting and see what is in there. Guess something like a butt connector might work if I could find the break?

I had the same issue on my E91, it was diagnosed as broken wires. I ended up getting a local auto electrician to repair mine, it wasn’t a huge amount. I did consider giving the repair a go myself, but didn’t want to mess it up!

[Simes205]

Whilst your there check the other side, the central locking wires break in the same way.

Edited by Simes205 on Saturday 26th September 18:35

[SlowV6]

Thanks CB987 and Simes205. I think auto electrician plus precautionary check on other side could be the way to go. I plan to keep the e91 until it dies so need to fix the radio.

[Mr Tidy]

I had the same issue with my 2006 E91.

When I viewed it in Ewell, Surrey it worked just fine but when I got it home to Sandhurst, Berkshire where radio, TV and mobile signals are pretty hopeless it wasn't much good.

But I used to go to Worcester Park every week to visit my mother and the nearer I got the better the reception got!

I did a bit of research and it seems there is an aerial amplifier near the top of the tailgate glass that can fail. New ones were £200 or so and before I got round to doing anything about it I sold the car.

It's replacement is a 2006 E90 but that one works fine - and the previous owner fitted DAB!