I had the iPod interface installed few months ago at Century MINI in Greenville, SC. When I plugged my iPod in the first time, it was amazing...just what I wanted. On the drive home, exactly 20 minutes later, the head unit turned off. I thought it was a little wierd, but on the 2 1/2 hour trip home, the exact same thing happened every 20 minutes on the dot. I've taken it in to Global Imports in Atlanta now 3 times. Each time they have claimed to have fixed it, but it's pretty simple to see that it hasn't been. There's no guess work about when it will happen or how to recreate it; the head unit literally turns off every 20 minutes and started literally when I drove off the lot from having the iPod interface installed. What's more, there have been a few times when I've turned on the car and the head unit won't come on at all. I've almost broken the power/volume **** off trying to turn it on. All i know is letting the car sit for the rest of the work day or overnight resolves the problem.

So on top of that, last week I didn't have my iPod with me and wanted to listen to AM radio (it's true). To my surprise, when I hit the AM button, I saw nothing about AM, but this instead...






Where did my AM go? Why does my head unit turn off exactly every 20 minutes? Century made me pay $343 for the install and Atlanta MINI has blown me off 3 times about fixing it. I haven't heard about problems like these from the IceLink or other hookups, but I really don't want to have wasted the cost of a new iPod on this. Any ideas?

 

I'm not particularly experienced with this sort of thing, but I'd like to make a thesis -- your head unit and adapter were mis-wired during the install at the dealership. Why? There's only one situation when your head unit will run for twenty minutes and turn itself off -- with your MINI's engine turned off.

Return to the dealership, and explain the symptoms clearly to the Service Manager. Emphasize how many visits it has taken to get exactly zero improvement to this situation, where MINI technicians installed MINI-approved componentry, and his Service Technicians cannot correctly diagnose and fix the problem.

Good luck.

- Matthew Z.

 

First switch off the head unit and then turn it back on. Now press and hold the "M" button for about 8 seconds. The display will change and showS/N xxxxxxxxxx which is the serial number of the unit. Use the far right buttons, they will have a + and a - sign above them to step through the menu list. Stop when it reaches "area OCE" Use the buttons on the far left hand end to toggle thought the countries till you get to the USA. Now press one of the buttons on the far right end to move off the "area" selection menu. Now turn the radio off. Turn it back on and you should now have the freq you want.

Bear

 

As stated above the am thing is area related in he UK we have AM on some radios but on most it is split into MW & LW
The 20 mins thing - the radio either has no longer got its aux live or the premanen & aux lives are swaped round,more likely the aux has become disconnected

 

Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions. I took it to Global Imports (Atlanta) and said I wouldn't leave until it worked properly. Well, 5 days later, I picked it up and sat in the parking lot listening to my iPod for 30 minutes, finally please that it worked. Here's what my paperwork says:Good as (it should have been) new.