# HELP! Pothole made my left-side speakers flake out!



## OBS3SSION (Oct 1, 2002)

Damn Massachusetts roads!  

Okay, so I hit a fairly nasty pothole today (left side). As far as I know, not hard enough to damage the wheel or tire. I'll pull the wheel tomorrow to double check.

Anyway, right after the hit, I noticed the sound from my stereo (listening to XM) seemed crappy. Almost like some speakers were busted. Later, when the car was parked, I played with the balance control and found that absolutely no sound was coming from the left side at all. None.  BTW, I have an '03 330i with the HK standard.

On the way home, going over normal bumps seemed to have jostled whatever back again, because things are sounding okay... for the moment.

Any ideas? I'm guessing some connector somewhere is loose. I just don't even know where to start looking.


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## SARAFIL (Feb 19, 2003)

OBS3SSION said:


> *Damn Massachusetts roads!
> 
> Okay, so I hit a fairly nasty pothole today (left side). As far as I know, not hard enough to damage the wheel or tire. I'll pull the wheel tomorrow to double check.
> 
> ...


You think your roads are bad? As a MA native planted in RI, I think its fair for me to say that RI by far has the worse roads of the two.

They tax us on everything imaginable and then some, but they never have any money in the budget to fix the damn roads. What's up with that?!


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## jgrgnt (Apr 27, 2002)

OBS3SSION said:


> *...Any ideas? I'm guessing some connector somewhere is loose. I just don't even know where to start looking. *


Sounds like a loose connection to me. The harness connector at the amplifier is a pretty tight connection, so the problem might lie somewhere else. Possibly a bad connection at the speaker itself? Was there no sound coming from ANY of the left-side speakers, or was it an individual woofer/tweeter/midrange?


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## OBS3SSION (Oct 1, 2002)

At the time I was parked and testing using the balance control, ALL of the left side speakers were out. However, after driving the car again, and hitting some bumps, everything seems to have been jostled back to normal... for the moment.


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## jw (Dec 21, 2001)

Take it to the dealer and have them reseat the connections. If it happened once, it's bound to occur again.


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## jgrgnt (Apr 27, 2002)

OBS3SSION said:


> *At the time I was parked and testing using the balance control, ALL of the left side speakers were out. However, after driving the car again, and hitting some bumps, everything seems to have been jostled back to normal... for the moment. *


Yeah, best to take it to your dealer and let them figure it out. It kind of sounds like either the output from the head unit or the input to the amplifier is loose.


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## OBS3SSION (Oct 1, 2002)

I'll have to do that at my next (first) service visit. Luckily, the speakers/sound has been fine since. *crossing fingers*


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## OBS3SSION (Oct 1, 2002)

Bad news: The problem has been continuing, where the left side speakers are cutting out on me.

Good news: I figured out the problem, and it has nothing to do with the car, per se. When the speakers were flaking out, I switched modes from XM (via CDC) to FM and all the speakers worked. Switch back, left side was out. So I know it has something to do with my XM tuner or Soundgate adapter.

Not so good news: When I jiggled the CD changer plug from the BMW trunk harness that is connected to my XM Soundgate adapter, the left speakers came back. But it seems for some reason the connection is a poor one, and it doesn't take much to loosen the connector enough to cause problems. So, I don't know if the adapter has a poor fit with the plug, or if the plug is broken somehow. Argh!

Well, I was saying the Soundgate solution for XM was only temporary. And that I'd eventually either get the AUX-In adapter or a different CD changer adapter...


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