Hi,

My XM finally stopped working completely. For about a year, it has had the dreaded 'ANTENNA" in the display, which means there is a loose connection. The dealer was fairly obtuse about fixing it, and since the radio worked, I didn't have them repair it.

Now it has completely stopped receiving signal, but if I bang the trunk lid, it cuts in and out. My suspicion is that the antenna for XM is directly under the trunk lid (unlike other models, there is no shark fin).

If that is the case, does anyone know how to remove the trim/cover off the bottom of the trunk lid so I can see if it is an easy fix (i.e. reconnect antenna)? I took out all the screws, but still couldn't remove the panel.

 

This is a common repair i have come accross at the dealer. The problem is the wiring in the trunk lid. When you open the trunk you will see a rubber hose on the left side of it, the wires go through this and what happens is they stretch to the point where they don't connect anymore. What they have to do is run new wires from the radio all the way back to the units in the trunk. Its a major pain in the ***, and we charge a ******* butt load to do it. However there should at least be a TSB for this repair by now, i would call AOA with my findings if the dealer doesn't want to cooperate, and tell them i am an ex audi tech from Niello Audi in northern california.

 

Thanks,

I popped off the trim panel and monkeyed with the satellite radio wires. Sure enough, I found where it is broken. Satellite radio has a 6 second buffer, which makes it a little challenging to find the break, but narrowed it down to right around the black rubber hose. My first plan will be to splice the broken coax, if that doesn't work I'll take it in.

 

Splicing it won't work because the wire has both ground and power. If you take the connector off the satelite radio you will see that it has an inner and outer pin on a single wire, this makes it impossible to splice unless you want to burn down your car.
You can however piece together a repair wire kit at the parts department at the dealer. They should have a book with lots off different pictures of wiring connectors and spare wires/lenths. If you know what you're doing you can overlay a repair pretty easilly, the hard part is removing all the trim panels to run the wires.