DD_545i

I've got full navi (CCC I believe that means) on my 2004 5er, and in Feb of this year I got the latest Progman version (number is in my sig), and I got the MP3 upgrade/switch done. So I'm able to play MP3 CD's. The problem is that what started out as an occasional track skip/blip (once or twice it would happen in an hour) has now become much more frequent. Sometimes part way through a song it'll just jump to the next track. Sometimes the audio will blip (it sounds like it was zapped by static electricity) and will drop right down and then come back up. But worse than either of those things, is that now 50% of the time when I get into the car, I find it switches to radio and when I try and switch it back to CD, it says unsupported format. I have to take the disc out completely and put it back in. When I do that, 50% of the time it accepts the disc and starts playing MP3 files again, the other 50% of the time it treats the disc as unsupported and I have to try again.

I'm using standard 128kbps 44.1khz stereo MP3 files, burned in a standard way (well it does work most of the time, so it must be good).

So I'm now thinking I'll take the plunge and get a DG500, but I'm a bit reluctant because I might find out that the random skip, static-effect blip and maybe even the unsupported thing might have nothing to do with the disc itself. It might be an idrive problem. So I might get the DG500 and find that I have exactly all the same problems.

I'd be using it with a USB drive, not an ipod. I assume that's supported on the 500. It was supported on the 300 I had in my Audi.