BMW Radio 2006 RT

[ARP]

Has anyone had intermittent radio problems on an RT. I have the factory radio, which I did not want to purchase, but find works well for my daily commute. Sometimes it won’t turn on and the ON button backlight is not glowing. Then I know I must stop and re-boot the bike (shut-off). Then the ON button glows properly and the radio will turn on. This happens while riding after the radio has been on and off.

 

The dealer cannot suggest a fix unless they can duplicate, which is so far, not possible.

 

Any ideas ?

[Whip]

XM.....I have had my bike for 18 months...the radio has never worked right...

 

How's the am 20 miles out of town??...LOL.

 

Whip

[ARP]

I live right in between Milwaukee and Chicago so the radio works well on AM and FM. For traveling I would install Sirius as I have in two cars.

[Volfan615]

No problems at all with mine.

[keithb]

Hey, where did you get that yellow RT?

[BFish]

interesting color on the RT. Fill us in please.

[Gkgeiger]

My radio has worked fine for 2yrs and 28k miles.

[TomfromMD]

My radio has worked fine for 2yrs and 28k miles.

 

Ditto (although only for 1 year and 11,000 miles). And I've noticed that in the past six months, the CD skips much less. I guess my careful break-in has paid off!

[marcopolo]

I've had my '06 RT since April, and the radio/CD has worked fine in 21,500 kms. It shut itself off once; don't know why, perhaps I had it too loud (I wear earplugs)! It worked fine again after I shut the bike down at a gas stop.

[Whip]

I've had three radios and 4 antennas exchanged on my bike....no AM....FM is fine....CD never skips....I gave up.

[JohnBeaven]

After 12 months and 18500km my radio is working just fine. Although, it is only useful up to about 90kmh. Above that the wind noise makes it difficult to hear. Therefore, I tend to only use it around town. I would have preferred not to have had the radio but it is standard on R12RT's sold in Australia.

[ARP]

The color is BMW Phoenix Yellow.

[marcopolo]

The color is BMW Phoenix Yellow.

 

You obviously had it painted. What colour was it originally?

[DrDakar]

My CD player is skipping even when I rev the engine on the center stand. I hear the same complaint from a lot of people.

[TomfromMD]

Although, it is only useful up to about 90kmh. Above that the wind noise makes it difficult to hear. Therefore, I tend to only use it around town.

 

I found that by carefully adjusting the windshield height (even better with the Z-Technik shield), the radio is useful up to nearly 80mph - 130kph.

 

Tom

[dnyman]

After 12 months and 18500km my radio is working just fine. Although, it is only useful up to about 90kmh. Above that the wind noise makes it difficult to hear. Therefore, I tend to only use it around town. I would have preferred not to have had the radio but it is standard on R12RT's sold in Australia.

 

+1 to that, but only 3 months and 6,500km.

 

I also find the CD skips a lot (news to no-one here, I suspect ). I reported the skipping to BMW after the first week of ownership, and they responded with "...it works fine on the autobahns in Europe ... ". The skipping seems to have no real relationship to road irregularities, though. I suspect the internal buffers are too small, and also the mechanism is not optimised for use vertically - probably taken directly from the BMW cars, where it's mounted horizontally. Bigger buffers would help a lot.

 

Dave.

[DrDakar]

I reported the skipping to BMW after the first week of ownership, and they responded with "...it works fine on the autobahns in Europe ... ". The skipping seems to have no real relationship to road irregularities, though.

Dave.

 

Dave, as I said above, mine is skipping even I rev the engine when the bike is on the center stand.

[dnyman]

Dave, as I said above, mine is skipping even I rev the engine when the bike is on the center stand.

 

Yeah, it's pitiful, really. The CD is really the only thing I'm disappointed with on my RT. I can't believe it wasn't tested more thoroughly by BMW. I believe the problem is not so apparent on the LT's, which I think share the same unit, but it's mounted horizontally on the LT, and probably benefits from the more plush suspension. When you consider the cost of RAM nowadays, how difficult would it be to plug enough in to buffer a complete track on a CD . They can get it (pretty) right with an iPod, with magnetic heads running microns from the disk surface. And the CD player in my wife's Subaru Imprezza never misses a beat.

 

Dave.

[DARKSTAR]

The only problem I have with the radio is that it turns itself off when I'm playing a cd too loudly. The cd player is louder than the radio and cd's made at home are louder than regular cd's. Those are the ones that cause my radio to shut off. Other than that my radio has been a dream. On a clear moonlit night, with my wife on the back seat, there is nothing like a little jazz to make the ride perfect and romantic.