This thread just probably saved me a couple of hundred dollars -- at the minimum -- thanks once again for posting it. I picked up a CPO 2006 X3 3.0i a few months ago, and asked the salesman about pairing my Blackberry with it. He looked at it (a new 8900) and stated that it wasn't on the "approved list" and that I risked frying the module and voiding the warranty on this part of the car. Like others in this thread, I've been in IT for a *long* time, and I've been using bluetooth practically since its inception. I have NEVER heard of any kind of BT "incompatibility" that allows one BT device to "fry" another, causing so much damage that it would voice a warranty. This is ludicrous.
Anyway -- the day I took the car home, the salesman - after delivering his warning - put the car in pairing mode, and I easily paired my 8900 with it. Oddly enough, my entire phone book transferred over to the X3, and I can SEE each and every entry on the radio display by scrolling up/down through the list with the arrow buttons on my steering wheel. But this version of the ULF apparently won't accept voice name dialing based on downloaded entries -- I have to record a voice tag for each item I want it to be able to dial by voice command. A pity, but this has worked since day one. Additionally, hands free calling and call answer work perfectly, temporarily interrupting whatever music I'm listening to when the call comes in. I can even pick up my Blackberry 8900, hit the voice dial key and initiate the voice dialing that way -- and once the remote phone starts to ring the audio is transferred via BT to the car, making a perfect speakerphone. All in all - pretty nice.
So -- after about 3 months of flawless operation, I got in the car today and BT wouldn't respond at all. I could hold the "face button" (the one that initiates a voice command, or repeats the last dialled number if I touch it briefly), and NOTHING would happen. I tried the pairing procedure, etc -- and the car acted as if BT had never been installed. I freaked a bit, worrying that I had, in fact, somehow "fried" the unit and they'd try to nail me for $700 to "fix" it.
Happily, I found this thread, went back to the car and unplugged the BT unit for 5 seconds, reconnected it, et voila - it worked again! All is back where it was 3 months ago. Thanks again to all who posted and contributed to this thread. Just saved me quite a bit of grief, time and money.
- Jon