# NBT Head Unit broken after cleaning A/C with foam. Defective Hard drive?



## F30-GTR (Feb 14, 2021)

Hello. I recently used the Manol A/C cleaning foam to dissinfect my A/C , i have done this job multiple times in the past , but this time i have decided to go one step further , and i sprayed some amount of it in the blower motor , after removing the cabin filter which i would swap out anyway, so that it goes to the whole system and dissinfect it better. Little have I known that the Head Unit in my F30 is not isolated very good or at all , most probably because there is not supposed to be humidity where it is placed? But in any case, it appears that the Head Unit was filled with foam and gone bad. The first symptoms where the following. The Ring that controls temperature on the drivers side (left side) was not working properly , that was later fixed on its own , when the whole thing was dried out. The shorcut keys from the dashboard from 1 to 9 where being pressend randomly every 2-3 seconds without me touching anything (this was also fixed later on its own after it dried out) . And then the bigger problems , that did not get fixed after waiting for the whole thing to dry out where : the navigation system would be stuck in the loading proccess , i could not play music from Bluetooth conected phone, even though i COULD do phone calls and hear them from the car, the music playback from the phone was grayed out , also the usb that was as allways in the armrest would seem to be unrecognized by the head unit at all. It was also grayed out. After searching on forums for similar cases i only found one more who had the exact same problem. He had shown photos of his headunit and the interior of it had this greenish glitch on it , from the foam perhaps that has gone to it. Therefore he explained that his HDD was coroded and it was broken as a result. But he never wrote if he swaped the whole unit to fix it or what else he did , or if he fixed it at all for that metter. ALso i would like to note that the A/C works properly.

Now after asking the stealership about how we can fix this , just out of interest since i knew they would be x2 or x3 more expensive that INDY's , they quoted me 1.600 euro here in Germany ( i am not German though hence i do not use sources and forums from here to search about my problem) in order to swap my head unit to a new one , orderd by BMW centrals in Munich , then they would code the rest of the things , since the VIN would be inserted already from the factory. An INDY shop that codes BMW's has quoted me 600 euros , to put a used head unit that he already has in stock , and then change the VIN , remove the FSC's from the donor part and put in mine original FSC , he also said that he would install the newest maps for free , which is something that i have already done with the help of a member in here , shawn , who seems to be really good with this kind of stuff.

The question now is this. I do not feel like giving the 600 euros. ( i did search on other shops as well , and it was 900 , 800 or more , so this was the cheapest i found) . What i want to know is : is it dangerous to driver the car with the head unit as it is? I know it is just a multimedia player with the navi and bluetooth on it etc , but the broken HDD is loading without end , and the unit gets somewhat hot (I currently had the whole dashboard open and i check it for the lowest side of where the mic is located) , it is dangerous in terms of being able to catch fire for example?
Also , if the navi is not loading , i am assuming it is because it can not load the maps from the HDD , i do not know about the usb and bluetooth music not working though. maybe it can not load the players from the HDD? The CD is also not working , but the radio is normal and the AUX also works. So , what if i would try to change just the HDD , as i mentioned above , the process of chaning the whole unit is somewhat of complex. and i do not feel like trying to DIY it . Also the cheapest working head unit i can find online is 400 euros , so the 600 price of the INDY means i would need to give 200 more for his coding.
But the though of just swaping the HDD and making it work again just seemed cheaper to me. Now here is where your knowledge and expertisse comes in hand 

Is it possible? And when i swap the HDD how to i load the data that is missing? Does it also require coding? I could do some basic things with esys i guess ( i am have coded with bimmercode quite a few things on my car , and i do have knowledge of pc's to some deegre, just not feel into diving to esys stuff) . Also about the old head unit. anone knows if it is normal to get somewhat hot even when it works properly and has no defects like mine?

In general the whole point of this post , is to seek an alternative that i have not though of , in order to restore the NAVI function and the music playback from Bluetooth and usb. Just in a chaper way than swaping headunits.

Thank you in advance and i am sorry for the long post. Hope someone can help me out.


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## Jamilhll (Oct 1, 2021)

F30-GTR said:


> Hello. I recently used the Manol A/C cleaning foam to dissinfect my A/C , i have done this job multiple times in the past , but this time i have decided to go one step further , and i sprayed some amount of it in the blower motor , after removing the cabin filter which i would swap out anyway, so that it goes to the whole system and dissinfect it better. Little have I known that the Head Unit in my F30 is not isolated very good or at all , most probably because there is not supposed to be humidity where it is placed? But in any case, it appears that the Head Unit was filled with foam and gone bad. The first symptoms where the following. The Ring that controls temperature on the drivers side (left side) was not working properly , that was later fixed on its own , when the whole thing was dried out. The shorcut keys from the dashboard from 1 to 9 where being pressend randomly every 2-3 seconds without me touching anything (this was also fixed later on its own after it dried out) . And then the bigger problems , that did not get fixed after waiting for the whole thing to dry out where : the navigation system would be stuck in the loading proccess , i could not play music from Bluetooth conected phone, even though i COULD do phone calls and hear them from the car, the music playback from the phone was grayed out , also the usb that was as allways in the armrest would seem to be unrecognized by the head unit at all. It was also grayed out. After searching on forums for similar cases i only found one more who had the exact same problem. He had shown photos of his headunit and the interior of it had this greenish glitch on it , from the foam perhaps that has gone to it. Therefore he explained that his HDD was coroded and it was broken as a result. But he never wrote if he swaped the whole unit to fix it or what else he did , or if he fixed it at all for that metter. ALso i would like to note that the A/C works properly.
> 
> Now after asking the stealership about how we can fix this , just out of interest since i knew they would be x2 or x3 more expensive that INDY's , they quoted me 1.600 euro here in Germany ( i am not German though hence i do not use sources and forums from here to search about my problem) in order to swap my head unit to a new one , orderd by BMW centrals in Munich , then they would code the rest of the things , since the VIN would be inserted already from the factory. An INDY shop that codes BMW's has quoted me 600 euros , to put a used head unit that he already has in stock , and then change the VIN , remove the FSC's from the donor part and put in mine original FSC , he also said that he would install the newest maps for free , which is something that i have already done with the help of a member in here , shawn , who seems to be really good with this kind of stuff.
> 
> ...


hello please email me [email protected] I did this same exact thing now I have the same problem trying to figure out if u had it resolved or figured out a solution. !


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## eXtratool BMW (Oct 22, 2021)

if your hdd in nbt/nbt evo is broken you can replace it.
but before you need to prepare it.









Upgrading NBT's HDD


Got an extra NBT unit (Euro spec) since I upgraded to a US-spec'd NBT. I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to try and understand the NBT a bit more. There are several reasons why I'm interested, HDD failure, being the top. I've personally seen a failed HDD on an NBT. The unit still...




www.bimmerfest.com


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## Annolago (Jan 17, 2018)

A lot of time have passed since you posted this originally so I don’t know if this is relevant any longer. If it is I would suggest sending your unit and getting it fixed. Now only vert few places does this but I had my dealer send it to a place in Rumania. Yes, I was extremely sceptic to begin with but they turned out to be great good. They have a max price but often they take less if the fault is not so complicated. I believe there is only that company in country that does the repair so should be easy to Google it. 
If you cannot find then pm me and I will see if I can find it.


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## adam.lacey (7 mo ago)

I unfortunately attempted the same type of service (used a disinfectant spray for AC vents) - and broke my NBT head unit. I sprayed some disinfectant into the air vents directly, sprayed some through the blower motor from the engine bay in 2016 435i. The car started normally right after - let the vents blow to circulate the air / dry things out.

The next day I had the same symptoms - 'Navigation Starting' message with green building image. I did not have any bluetooth audio - although I could make phone calls through bluetooth (my phone still connected just couldnt play audio with BT). Radio and aux in work fine. I hear the HDD in the NBT head unit clicking and spinning when I first turn the car on.

Makes you feel like a real dummy for breaking the head unit with what seems like a straightforward instructions and a disinfectant product!

I will be attempting to replace the HDD with a new HDD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008RZLSWE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And using the QNX SDK to partition and set up the HDD for the NBT head unit. This is pretty involved, requires some decent IT skills, booting to the QNX linux distro/SDK, navigating command line scripts, etc...

I've seen other options are purchasing a salvage NBT head unit of the same model number and getting a remote coding service to code in your VIN number after installing the unit. You will need a laptop and ethernet to ODB port cable for this.


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