Crackly Radio

[seth112]

Hello again, this has been my oldest issue actually... I bought this car a month ago and the gentleman that had owned it took great care of this car inside and out. He said though, that the radio had made this noise for about a year or more but he never bothered to fix it. You only hear crackling when you turn the dial right or left...this sound comes through all the speakers and it's quite loud and annoying.. but once you get it to the volume you want and stop turning the dial the crackling goes away.. additionally there is one other problem, most of the time the sound doesn't play through the left channel unless you play with the dial a lot (turning it up and down). The guy that sold me the car said you need a special tool to remove the radio, he says he included this tool so I should have it if needed. Any advice??? Thank you,

-Seth-
ghead

[BMWJNKY]

The noise is from a dirty contact on the volume dial on the inside of the radio. Take it to any good repair shop and it can be fixed, it is a very common problem with that style of radio in the BMW's. Once the internal contacts inside get cleaned/replaced the radio will work fine and you will get sound out of all the speakers.

[stationaryobserver]

I agree with the above post.

I removed the cassette player in my '87 325 to put in a new head unit with a cd player. The crackle went away and the stock speakers really aren't all that bad.

You can't turn them up enough to deafen yourself without blowing them out probably, but IMO, they're okay. The premium sound system sounds betters. The door panel tweeters help a lot w/ making the sound come from the front and the overall sound from the rear premiums is better too. (The rear deck for the standard/premium speakers is different. They'll still fit but just FYI)