BMW CCC repair : read this first and save money

If you’re dealing with a faulty iDrive CCC head unit, you probably don’t know what to do about it. Don’t worry, it’s very common. Correctly diagnosing a faulty CCC may be tricky by itself. But deciding whether to buy another CCC or have it repaired and by whom can be a daunting task. This article is meant to help you make a choice.

In this article we make the case that it’s cheaper to have your CCC repaired, provided you choose a professional service. We discuss what CCC repair methods to try or to avoid and whom to trust with repairing your head unit. Let’s destroy some myths first.

I was told my CCC unit is not repairable

All CCC faults can be repaired. In fact, all CCC navigation units currently for sale are refurbished CCC units. If you are thinking of replacing your faulty CCC unit with another one, you should ask yourself why you should pay more for the same service. The CCC iDrive you are purchasing is a repaired unit, so you would bypass the middleman by simply purchasing the repair service directly, instead of a repaired CCC. Who wouldn’t want to minimise costs ?

I heard about a CCC capacitors repair kit – should I get one of those ?

Sadly, the CCC repair capacitors kit is only a scam which has prevailed due to the high incidence of faulty capacitors in other types of electronic products (i.e. home appliances).
Throughout all our history with CCC repairs, we have never encountered a single CCC unit with faulty caps tough.

How about the online DIY CCC repair tutorials, how reliable are those ?

We found that these tutorials are usually made by two types of authors:

• private individuals who’ve only done this once.

  These are usually regular people who have some time on their hands and patience and curiosity to explore.

  But since it’s usually the successful DIYers that post videos and not the multitude of people who attempted and only got frustrated, these reports tend to give a lot of hope to the community.

• companies that deal with online publishing and which profit from traffic to their website.

  They usually have no connection with car infotainment repairs. Their job is to identify hot topics that will drive readers to their website.

  Such guides are meant only to generate traffic, not to be accurate, nor to solve issues. As a consequence, they tend to be inaccurate or downright misleading.

Interventions by non-professionals often lead to extra damage (due to lack of knowledge, lack of skill or lack of good will), but the CCC module will still be repairable by a knowledgeable repair shop. If you have the time and curiosity to attempt a repair yourself, by all means, give it a try.

However, keep in mind that worst case scenario is to pay 50% more than the usual CCC repair price to a specialized shop if you do not succeed. If this risk is ok for you, as long as you work carefully and considerately, your unit will still be recoverable.

How likely is it that the CCC failure will reappear eventually ?

Your CCC iDrive module has functioned properly for many years before a failure appeared. If the CCC repair is performed by a specialised repair shop, you won’t have problems again.

How do I know who to trust to repair my CCC iDrive module ?

You should have the same approach as with any other services you want to purchase:

• Perform a Google search and see what names come up

• Search on a few BMW forums with the same purpose

• Check out the websites of the few repair shops you found. Do they look reliable & knowledgeable ?

• Check out their customers’ reviews (on Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn or TrustPilot).

  Some shops have respectable brands, but a search through their customers’ reviews reveals they do not have personnel specialised on CCC repairs. You might find reviews of customers who had their units returned non-repaired and their accounts charged with a fee. So make sure you check what clients who had this particular CCC repair done by them have to say about the service.

• Check the warranty information. 1 year warranty is the norm for the CCC repair.

• Check the payment methods. Paypal payments, for example, are always reversible: if the service you purchase turns out not to be what you were promised, you can always ask PayPal for our money back.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you’re dealing with a faulty CCC unit, the most cost effective solution is to have it repaired. In order to decide whom to trust with this operation, a bit of research on shops’ reputation is highly recommended. If you need to troubleshoot the symptoms to make sure you identified the correct source, we provide instructions in another article. We hope we’ve helped you make the right choice.

If you want our help for repairing your CCC unit, please contact us through our dedicated CCC repair page.

Did you find our short guide helpful ? If there’s anything we missed or if you have a question, please feel free to leave a message and we will get back to you in a jiffy.