EdAcciardi
Member
Hello all, new to the forum.
I picked up a ‘16 QX70s (after searching for a year for a sport package) in almost flawless condition. One owner, no accidents, paint looks like new. Only 48K miles, got it for $20K out of Pennsylvania. While I was waiting for the registration paperwork to come through, the car sat for about 10 days, and when I finally got it registered, the battery was dead. I took apart the cowl trim and replaced the battery with an AGM unit that also went dead after parking the car during the summer of ‘25. I’m aware of the ‘smart’ charging issue, so I’ve been driving the car at least once every 3 or 4 days.
About 2 weeks ago, I noticed a lot of water in the passenger footwell after a few days of heavy rain. I dried it up as best as I could, and started learning about the windshield cowl seal and the clogged sunroof drains, and I now have parts to correct those problems.
What I’m asking about today is some strange behaviour from the Bose head unit. It started with taking forever to read my USB drive - like a whole hour before it would start playing music. I thought my thumb drive might be bad, so I replaced it with a new one to no effect. Then I disconnected the battery for an hour, also to no effect.
Today, it’s even worse. I can’t turn on the audio at all. The display reads “Audio -> Off and no amount of button pushing will turn the radio on. Everything else in the head unit works - Nav, climate info, settings, all menus, but I just can’t get the audio to turn on.
As a test to see where water might be gettin in, I poured a half gallon onto the windshield, and let it pool in the cowl trim piece. All the water drained out in a few minutes, but my passenger footwell did not get wet. I’m assuming the cowl piece is draining water correctly, but I can’t stop thinking that some water has gotten into my head unit. I checked and changed the fuses for the amplifier and the audio power, but no go.
I can get a used head unit on eBay for around $100. Should I assume the radio is cooked and just go ahead and replace it? And if I replace it, does it need to be coded to the VIN by a dealer to work? Also, any chance the BCM has been damaged? Everything else in the car is working perfectly with no gremlins or CELs coming on.
Any advice appreciated. I’m going to replace the firewall drain plugs as described in another thread, as well as the cowl seal.
Thanks very much,
Ed Acciardi
I picked up a ‘16 QX70s (after searching for a year for a sport package) in almost flawless condition. One owner, no accidents, paint looks like new. Only 48K miles, got it for $20K out of Pennsylvania. While I was waiting for the registration paperwork to come through, the car sat for about 10 days, and when I finally got it registered, the battery was dead. I took apart the cowl trim and replaced the battery with an AGM unit that also went dead after parking the car during the summer of ‘25. I’m aware of the ‘smart’ charging issue, so I’ve been driving the car at least once every 3 or 4 days.
About 2 weeks ago, I noticed a lot of water in the passenger footwell after a few days of heavy rain. I dried it up as best as I could, and started learning about the windshield cowl seal and the clogged sunroof drains, and I now have parts to correct those problems.
What I’m asking about today is some strange behaviour from the Bose head unit. It started with taking forever to read my USB drive - like a whole hour before it would start playing music. I thought my thumb drive might be bad, so I replaced it with a new one to no effect. Then I disconnected the battery for an hour, also to no effect.
Today, it’s even worse. I can’t turn on the audio at all. The display reads “Audio -> Off and no amount of button pushing will turn the radio on. Everything else in the head unit works - Nav, climate info, settings, all menus, but I just can’t get the audio to turn on.
As a test to see where water might be gettin in, I poured a half gallon onto the windshield, and let it pool in the cowl trim piece. All the water drained out in a few minutes, but my passenger footwell did not get wet. I’m assuming the cowl piece is draining water correctly, but I can’t stop thinking that some water has gotten into my head unit. I checked and changed the fuses for the amplifier and the audio power, but no go.
I can get a used head unit on eBay for around $100. Should I assume the radio is cooked and just go ahead and replace it? And if I replace it, does it need to be coded to the VIN by a dealer to work? Also, any chance the BCM has been damaged? Everything else in the car is working perfectly with no gremlins or CELs coming on.
Any advice appreciated. I’m going to replace the firewall drain plugs as described in another thread, as well as the cowl seal.
Thanks very much,
Ed Acciardi