speaker cut out/in -- loose wire?

[cambie]

In my 2005 325i, i am having radio problems. it sounds like every once in a while some speakers cut out, and the sound gets real flat. also, there is some popping coming out of some of the spearkers. but then i'll hit a bump in the road and the system returns to normal. hit another bump and it's back to a flat sound.

This started happening to me yesterday when i loaded my trunk full of electronic equipment that i was moving from my old apartment to my new house. it was pretty full.

from the sounds of things, it's got to be a loose wire, right? if so, i'm not real convinced something in my trunk knocked a wire loose. what do you guys think?

other things to consider are that my car did not come with nav, but i retrofit it into the car. could it be revolting? also, my sirius antenna cord was cut, and i spliced it back together. Could an electrical charge be jumping into the line in this splice and spiking my system?

I just need help in narrowing this down. It's driving me crazy, beause the popping/static happens even if the radio is off. I'm also a little worried about taking it to the dealer since i did the nav retrofit. i have a bad feeling they may just say "hey, you did this, we can't support it."

any advice would be greatly appreciated. i think i'm going to be taking things apart tomorrow morning and seeing if i can't find something.

[Bob Clevenger]

The symptoms occur even when the radio is off. This pretty much eliminates anything to do with the radio per se, such as antennae and the tuner itself, so we need to look elsewhere.
The first place I would look is the connections to your new radio unit (the one you added when retrofitting the nav system). Those connections carry the audio signal to the amp, even when the radio is off.
Also look at any wiring that is vulnerable to being pushed about by the load you carried.

Good luck.