[Professional]

I have a Jan2007 BMW 320dSE fitted with BMW Professional Radio / CD and have found it has significantly less function than in my previous 320dSE with Professional Radio / CD.

So What ?
In particular,
When a Traffic Programme 'breaks in', the RDS Station Identifier for that TP does not display. Instead it remains showing the chosen station. In practice, for example, this means that you can be driving towards London on the M4 and would only be interested in TPs from stations en route, e.g. BBC Berkshire, However, BBC Oxford, BBC Gloucestershire, BBC Bristol, BBC Wiltshire etc. will all break in. You have to listen to them, hoping their broadcast will identify them, so that you can then press the TP button to silence those in which you are not interested. On the 'old' radio, you could immediately identify the irrelevant stations visually and press TP, in seconds.
There is no way to have one of the FM bands set to scan continuously, automatically. In practice, this means that when you are out of your 'home area', to pick up stations in your current area you have to set an FM band, then press SET SC. This takes ages to scan and you have to listen to a sample of each station before you can hope to know what station it is. It's also a distraction to find the SET SC button again, quickly enough to 'grab' a station. The three-character, abbreviated RDS name that appeared on the 'old' model Radio was ideal: you could rapidly recognise the station you wanted and press it's corresponding button. This worked well in continental europe too, when travelling long distances. With this radio, though, you have to scan every 50 miles or so. It's virtually impossible.


This functional regression is caused by the Professional Radio in an E90 having only one tuner where the E46 Professional Radio had two. This was not realised by any of the staff (from two dealers) I've spoken to: not experienced Sales personnel; not even very experienced technical specialists who were most sympathetic ... and amazed. (See if you can find 'single tuner' or 'double tuner' mentioned in the brochures).

So, new E90s have been shipped with a significantly inferior but identically-named, 'Professional' Radio. The single tuner device is unusable for seeking available stations while travelling. Professional it is not. It's like buying a Business-Class ticket but being placed in an Economy seat. :mad:

BMW say, "The Professional Radio fitted in your new car does not have twin-tuners on the FM waveband, as fitted to your previous model, due to additional equipment and electronics." Or, to put it another way, more means less.


What can you do ?
Business and Professional navigation systems do have twin tuners but you cannot retrofit.

Forget local radio, plug your mp3 player into the AUX socket and listen to that.