I recently installed seat heaters in my '07 Cooper S, primarily following the wonderful procedures used and posted by OaklandMini and antinin1 on this forum. Great help, and when I finished, re-installed seats, etc. and connected the battery, everything in the car worked perfectly EXCEPT the radio. It only puts out white noise, louder or softer via the volume switch. The radio even maintained all the pre-set stations. When I used my Foxwell 520Pro OBD2 scanner with the Mini software, it indicates there is no antenna signal.

First - are there any wiring cables that I could have damaged or disconnected by having the tunnel console tilted up at a 30 degree angle from front to back? Any cables I could have damaged by cutting discrete slits in the carpet/foam to run seat heater wires and connectors? Does the radio/antenna need to be 're-programmed' by BMW since the battery was off most of the time over about a week's time with an occasional reconnect for 10-15 minutes to check progress?
Any other reasons why this might have happened????

THANKS for any help that you might give.

Gary

 

I'm aware of no 'radio re-programming' <owner of 3 since 2002>

I HIGHLY suspect you cut something under the carpet . . . .

did you check both AM and FM reception? Does the CD player work? AUX?

 

capt_bj,

Thank you very much for your prompt response. Yes - the CD player works perfectly, as does the volume control. So, I think the radio and audio amp are fine.. I do not have any aux connections yet (only had the car a short while, it was a one owner out of FL - didn't need seat heaters there). It has 31K miles, previous owners were in early 70's when they bought it and always had it serviced at the selling dealership. This is my first Mini, and will be my secondary winter car (I've had 6 BMW's however since 1974) Currently have two high powered sports type fun cars that are not good with slippery roads!

I understand the possibility of cutting a wire when I cut slits in the carpet/foam, but there are quite a few wires and a couple of looms that run on top of the carpet below the tunnel console, so I didn't suspect there were any wires below the carpet. The radio may have been turned on when I did some connect/disconnect of the battery to check connections etc. when I was doing the wiring install. Ground connection at the battery might have sparked during those acts. Could one of the antenna amps been compromised by this? I'm of the old school (very old at age 83), and usually believe that something doesn't work after a repair procedure, first check what was involved in that procedure that could have caused the problem. Doubtful to me that any of the three antenna amps just coincidentally failed during the 3-4 days I was doing the work.

Any and all suggestions or help are really appreciated.

Gary