ive been listening to Pandora and this other app Songza on my iPhone through the aux port on my MINI and its making a strange noise. its some kind of ringing/static. it only happens once i start the apps. if i pause the song i can hear it, but if i mute it the sound goes away. ive tried different cables and they work fine in the subaru but when i go to the MINI both cables produce this sound (although strangely one cable causes a static noise while the other causes more of a ring). if i get the Y-cable for the iPhone will this fix it? does anyone else have this problem? its not a very loud noise but once a song ends and it goes into silence or fades out you can definitely notice the noise. any suggestions appreciated thanks

 

You should get the Y-Cable for the fact that you'll be able to read the tracks on your radio display and skip songs by using the radio or wheel control buttons. Not sure about the static noise though.

 

I have run into this before. Just unplug your iPhone and reinsert the connector. Make sure you have a good contact. If the noise continues you have a bad Y-cable. But the 2 times I've had this happen with a customer's MINI it was simply poor contact and unplugging and replugging solved it both times. Good luck.

 

first of all he is not talking about the y-cable and this is also a known problem with many MINI's.

Most of the time it is a grounding issue. There are a lot of threads on this subject in the NAV and AUDIO section.

One thing to try is to run it without powering the phone from the cigarette lighter. If you problem is still there then most likely the AUX in jack is not grounded well (lose connection) or the plug going it is not making good contact with the ground ring on the jack.

If the noise goes away when the phone is not powered from the cigarette lighter then it is a ground loop issue which a ground loop isolation cable should fix.

 

I respect your knowledge regarding MINI and other technical aspects of vehicles, but the word cable was mentioned several times. If an issue can been solved by the simplest solution that may be one to try.

 

I have the same problem it works with my iPod fine, but my iPhone 4s has that high pitch static noise, so i just use my iPod.

 

First of all you should be using the MINI y connector, second of all several times I have seen people that have stuck the usb plug in backwards and when doing so they have bent the pins around inside the aux port. If thats not the case then the aux port itself is probably bad, I dont think its a grounding issue at all.

 

I'm sure your cable is fine. The problem is with the IPhone, in particular the 4s and possibly the 4. The 3g and 3gs work fine with just the aux port. The Y-cable will solve your issue, and you can still use Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. You will have to use the radio or steering wheel controls for the ipod function, but you can do anything else from the phones screen. Hope this helps