I am finding that about 40% of the time when I come to start up I have lost bluetooth pairing and/or the system cannot read my iPOD. There doesn't appear to be a pattern to this and it seems that something is going wrong when the electronics shut down. Grateful for any thoughts.

I've got a similar problem on a new(to me) '08 535i with the usb connect from the factory. It recognizes my iPod, but after I turn off the car it will not. To get the system to recognize the iPod again, I have to unplug it and plug it back in each time I get back in the car.

The dealer is clueless on this. I'm hoping someone here is familiar with this issue. I've looked all thru settings on both iDrive and on the iPod itself. Is there some trick I am missing?

did the dealership try swapping out the usb/6fl cable....

Did you try resetting the iDrive at all? This used to happen with my bluetooth-an iDrive reset took care of it....

No.

Do you think that could be it? The car is seeing the iPod and it does work - until I turn off the car. I could be wrong, but it would seem like if the problem were in the cable, then it wouldn't work at anytime.