XSeries-forum

The radio unit in my X5 is the older non widescreen one. Recently i have noticed that the sound coming from the radio is very 'tinny' with less volume than normal. Today it was back to normal for a while but now has gone quiet again. Its totally random. Sound from the CD player is perfectly normal with good bass etc.
Is there a radio reciever somewhere in the car other than the dash that could be at fault? If anyone has any ideas please say.

If you have a 4" display and Navigation there is no radio in the dash, the radio is under a plastic cover under the spare wheel in the boot.
They can be repaired and upgraded just search on here BM24 and 54 upgrades

I'll take a look. Mine has sat nav but the screen is just a square one whereas our other X5 has a larger screen.

The set up is the same, you can swap the screen for the wide screen and re-set the resolution to 16.9. The radio is in the boot under the spare and suspension compressor with the battery. Mine is under a plastic cover beside the battery towards the rear of the car, it has a big square quadlock connector on the top and the aerial.  I haven't had mine upgraded but have read that you can add bluetooth music streaming and all sorts of "modern" stuff

Well i had a look the other day and there is nothing that resembles a radio by the battery. There is, however, something that looks like one under the CD/ satnav players on the left hand side at the rear. Is that it?

Have a look at this link (https://www.bm54.com/How-to-remove-a-BM ... rom-BMW-X5) the radio in mine and in the previous 4.4 was just like this.
There is a plastic cover over it remove the cover and this exactly what I see.

If it isnt there then someone (a previous owner) has re positioned it for some reason. Mine has Nav unit CD changer and ULF bluetooth units in the left cubby, Radio unit TV unit, PDC, and Towing unit are together in the battery compartment.

Ah ha. Found it right where you said. Ive taken it out/apart but cant see any visible cracks in solder. Further research on YouTube revealed that the internal amps can fail. I think that may be what is happening to mine.

Look for 'Baris' on here.  He fixes and upgrades them 

Nobody by that name according to the search.

[quote="themoog"]
Nobody by that name according to the search.
[/quote]

http://www.carphonics.co.uk/bm54upgrades.htm