XM Tuner problem

[floyd]

So I have an '06 M35X with 136K miles on her and yesterday I decided to switch my SiriusXM account to my M35 from another vehicle I was driving and sold. Now, I've owned this car since new in late 2005 and never used the satellite radio. I call SXM with the radio ID and after spending the whole day going back-n-forth with them we could not get the tuner to connect. Has anyone ever had this issue or seen one of these tuners go bad? Thanks!

[Ilya]

Does the preview channel work (XM1)?

[floyd]

No... you can see all the channels for about two seconds then the 'No Signal' message pops up.

[Ilya]

Yeah, sounds like the tuner is bad. If XM1 played fine, then I'd lean more towards something with the subscription, etc.

[Rogue One]

It's possible you could just have a loose connection. The XM tuner is roof mounted (part 28051 in section 'K').



If the unit is bad, used ones are available on ebay for under $100. Part #28051-EH00B or Part #28051-EH10A

[Ilya]

The harness is in the trunk, on the underside of the rear shelf on the passenger side. You could try what Rogue is suggesting, just reseat the connection.

[floyd]

Thanks guys... I'll reset all the plugs on the tuner and see if that works.

[floyd]

So I reseated the plugs to the XM tuner and still nothing. If the tuner was not getting power would it even send the radio ID to my monitor screen (which it does)? No kinks or bad wires from what I can tell. I guess the tuner just decided to take a dump but it doesn't make sense that it would display the ID number on the screen if it wasn't working, unless the problem lies with the antenna but I don't see any issues there either.

[Larz]

That's a head-scratcher. If you can see channels even for a few seconds, then I reckon the tuner is getting power and is connected to the console unit correctly as well. The fact that XM-1 does not play seems to indicate no reception, not necessarily, a bad tuner. I recall some posts a while back about adding I-pod to the M that required manipulating some of the wiring used by the SAT tuner. Not sure exactly, but the bottom line was that IF you wired your M for an I-pod, you loose XM. Was your M wired for an I-pod by chance? You may want to look in the center console to make sure those wires and the XM antenna is actually connected to the console unit and there are no strange wires just laying about under the console. Other than that, I have no idea what could cause your trouble.
The good news is that the tuner part# seems to work on a huge array of Nissan / Infiniti models and years. Even if you buy a used one from a Maxima, 370, EX, etc you won't have to worry that the mounting brackets are different because your tuner already has the correct brackets.
*** you will have to verify this, but XM could not add traffic info to my 07 tuner because it would not accept the traffic signals. On my 09 tuner, I could. Maybe try to get a used tuner from a newer model year than 06/07.

[Ilya]

USA Spec was the iPod adapter that Larz is referring to. If you didn't have a tuner, you used the PA15-NIS module. If you had a tuner, you used the PA15-INFI module (which you don't lose iPod with). Something to look at it, if you have an iPhone cable, but I don't think that's the issue.

[floyd]

The car is bone stock, it's never been tampered with cause I am the only owner, no iPod/iPhone adapters, etc. I see tuners on eBay but now I'm worried no that even if I spend the money on a used tuner I might have the same problem. This could get expensive too. If I take it to a dealer it's gonna cost at least $100 and I might not get anywhere with them at the end of the day. I guess if I'm going to spend $100 I'll take my chances with a used tuner. Also, after looking at some on eBay, I noticed that the plugs could be different. Like my antenna cable has a square plug where it connects to the tuner and one I looked at online today from a '07 M45 had a round plug so, not sure if they are as interchangeable as suggested.

[Larz]

Thanks for clarifying that Ilya ! I agree with you Floyd, the choices seem to be:
1) pay labor charges at Infiniti to have them trouble shoot the issue and still not have a working XM
2) just buy a used tuner for less than the dealer labor charges and hope for the best.
Now that you have seen your tuner, you will be able to determine if the plugs will match on the tuner you buy.

[floyd]

So I took a closer look at my XM tuner today. Wish I could post a pic from my iPad but anyways, the tuner Part # is 999U9- NV003, Model # EN-1187E. It has one white plug with a bunch of wires connected for power, signal, etc. The antenna wire has a pink plug that plugs into a splitter of some sort with one-green plug and one-yellow plug, which then plugs into the tuner thru a round green and yellow connector on back of tuner. Of all the XM tuners I found on eBay none of them resemble mine.

[floyd]

I'm going to try to bypass the splitter between the antenna and tuner... maybe it's the culprit and there is no signal coming from the antenna mounted to the roof down to the tuner because the splitter went bad.

[floyd]

So I found my tuner on eBay last night once I was able to get the part # of it. It turns out its the tuner used in the 370z's of that era.

[floyd]

Ok I found the problem... wasn't with the tuner at all. Bad antenna connection or there's a break in the wire somewhere. I had an old Sirius portable tuner from years back, dug thru the shop and found it, plugged it into the XM tuner in the trunk and viola... it worked.

[Ilya]

Nice! Relatively cheap fix then.