iConnect / Lighting / Battery Problems ???

[jcdas]

I got my iConnect from gm_geek about 2 weeks ago. 2006 CTS with base radio, without XM.

After I had it initially connected, but the radio not yet "TECH2"ed, I had a strange problem with the interior lights not going out.
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums...nterior+lights

The interior lighting problem mysteriously went away.

I got the car "TECH2"ed last Monday. The iConnect wasn't initially recognized by the radio, no mater what the technician did. But when I started the car in the lot afterwards, everything was fine. I think that the radio does the initial communication with the iConnect only in a true IGNITION START cycle, not just an IGNITION ON cycle. Anyways...

At the moment, I'm using the iConnect for an external MP3 player in my Lowrance GPS. Connected to the secondary aux input of the iConnect. Works OK, but there is a faint bit of audio interference noise when the radio is cranked all the way up. I can live with it. Anyone else with this problem???

When the Band is set to XM1 I get a message "No iPod detected", and the radio has a clicking sound. click, click click .... Probably the radio trying to find an iPod.
Anyone else with this same noise when no iPod connected???

If this is 'normal' I guess I can live with that. The iPod connection seemed to work with a work buddie's Nano.

Everything seemed to be OK regarding the interior lighting, though I watched it like a hawk.

This morning I started the car, drove to work, listening to the radio, not via the iConnect. Everything is OK, but I didn't hear the horns honk when I locked the car. Oh well....

After work, I try to start the car and the battery is DEAD.

OK, I get a boost, and the car starts OK.
But some things seem different in the DIC. The trip a & b odometers have been reset, along with the average speed, and fuel economy.

When I got home, I had to reset the Personalization settings several times before the horn would start to honk when locking the doors with the remote.

I've read the manual, and I'm guessing that something in the Dash Integration Module is NOT going to sleep mode, which can drain the battery.

Is this a symptom of an iConnect problem, or something else?

I found the TSB on the interior light switch.
http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/tsb/d...06-03-003a.pdf
My car is an 06, made in May 06, so I wouldn't expect it to be related to the 03-05 overhead console switch problem....

Any ideas folks? Appreciate any assistance.

John.

[InfraredFL]

That ticking noise you hear when you hit Aux 1 without the Ipod connected
is normal...I have that also...don't see why your battery went dead though..
the Iconnect doesn't tap into your power that way...there is no splicing
at all...your personalized settings being lost with a dead battery make some
sense also...I'd check with the dealer...it is a GM authorized part...who
installed it ? Are you leaving the Ipod connected overnight ?? I'd tell you
to call their main office but that guy wasn't of much help to the installers
who did mine...

That other thing that you experienced about the Ipod not being detected..
the car needed to be shut off..key out of the ignition..then cycle through
completely..turn car on, turn radio on...go to xm...hold F6...then it was
finally recognized....needed to do it only once...\

By the way why did you need to Tech2 your radio...supposedly the Iconnect
supports non XM radios...just with different dip settings..

[jcdas]

Hi InfraredFL
I bought my iConnect from gm_geek, a vendor on this site. He sent the kit to me in Canada. I installed the kit per his instructions, and others I found on this web site (cadillacFAQ).

As my car did not have XM installed, I installed my iConnect in the dash above the glove box. It taps into the wires in the back of the radio that go to the XM receiver, if there was one. My car seems to be different from earlier years, in that mine is wired for XM. Most non-XM cars seem to have no wiring for XM either.

Because my car did not have XM, I had to have the radio software updated via the TECH2, to look for an XM receiver, which the iConnect is mimicking.

The iConnect does tap into +/-12 volts for power. More significantly, it taps into the Class 2 Serial data circuit. This is the circuit that provides the track into to the radio, and allows the radio & steering wheel buttons to navigate the iPod to different tracks or play lists. This same Class 2 Serial data circuit can cause the Dash Integration Module to stay awake when it shouldn't, and can cause abnormal battery drain when everything should be off.

This is what really has me worried.

So far, it looks like the iConnect might NOT be compatible with my CTS, though from what I've read here, there could be other devices doing the exact same thing. Seems to be a lot of people with dead battery problems.

John.

[RobertCTS]

I thought we had an energy management system. After the ignition is off for a period of time anything drawing power is shut down? It works for my radar detector which is always on. When I come to my car in the mornings it is OFF.

[jcdas]

That's what I thought.

Well, this morning the battery is TOTALLY DEAD. Had to manually unlock the doors. I put the key in the ignition to see if the DIC would tell me the battery voltage. Nothing. Had to find the page in the manual to figure out how to remove the key from the ignition when the battery is dead.

I'm obviously not too happy this morning. Something is definitely wrong here.

[jcdas]

I brought the car to the dealership (with the iConnect disconnected). They found a defective Left Rear door module. It was telling the Door Integration Module that the door was open, and to turn on the interior lights, which probably drained the battery, despite battery rundown protection.

They disconnected the door circuit for now, while they wait for parts.

Hope that this really is the problem.

John.

[InfraredFL]

John...let me know how you are switching play lists...I had to
number all my songs to ID them on the radio screen...that has been
my largest inconvenience..so much so I can't wait to have a nav
not only cause "its' a nav" but because the interface with the
iconnect is so much better...please advise on how you switch
playlists ?

[InfraredFL]

by the way..hope your battery issues are corrected with the
door module... I can only imagine the headache
I'd have in the morning if I found my car dead

[jcdas]

At the moment, I don't own an iPod, so I'm not sure about the playlists.
I tried a friends iPod Nano, but it had only one playlist, so it didn't prove anything, other than it played through the radio, and the steering wheel controlls did change songs.

At the moment, I'm using my Lowrance GPS with it's MP3 player. I've arranged all the songs by genre, and it works OK for me. Once the weather improves, the Lowrance will be mounted on my motorcycle, and then I'll really need the iPod for the CTS.

Once everything is stable, and I'm happy that the iConnect isn't causing any problems, I'll go out and buy one. Not sure how big, or what model (Flash or hard disk model) to get.

I'll let you know how the playlists work out.

Hopefully, my dead battery problems are properly diagnosed, and have nothing to do with the iConnect.

I'm also hoping that this problem is the last problem I have with the CTS. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with it. I can't say that there are any other assembly defects in the car. Everything fits well, and works well.

John.

[jcdas]

Last week Wednesday, the replacement left rear door latch was installed. Everything seemed to be OK.

Thursday AM, NOTHING works. Totally dead battery. I'm not very happy at all.

Boost the battery, and drive to the dealer. They gave me a rental CTS to drive while they had a look at it again. At first the battery tested OK. They waited about an hour, and retested the battery, and this time it failed their load capacity test. So they replaced the battery. I had a long chat with the Service Manager, and shop foreman to get an idea if this was the real problem, or just a stab in the dark. They think it was a bad battery. OK, I drive it home.

Next day, before lighting up anything, I checked the battery voltage with a meter. Looks good at 12.5 volts

Checked it again the next day. Still looking good at 12.5 volts.

So far, everything is looking good on the battery/electrical side.

InfraRed.
I bought an iPod, and have been trying it out.
If you set one of the display buttons to the CAT function, and you toggle it on, the right tunning knob will allow you to scroll through your playlists, displayed on the lower part of the screen. Once you find the playlist you like, press the right tunning knob to Select that playlist. The radio will then have ipod1 to ipodx reflecting the number of tracks on that playlist.

So if you create playlists by genre, or artist, you can navigate reasonably easy. It's not fast. I only get the first 8 digits of the track name. Can't find anything about artist/album info. I tried the RDS message recall function, but it only recalls the first 8 digits of track name.

You do get 2 playlists I didn't expect. 'SONGS' is a general playlist of whatever you were previously set to listen too via iPod navigation I think.
On The GO is a playlist that you can create on the iPod by navigating to a playlist, album, artist etc, and pressing the centre button.

I was hoping for a playlist called PODCASTS, but I can't see how to get this, except by having a podcast as the track in your SONGS playlist. I've got to work on this a bit more, as I want to be able to manage and navigate to some PODCASTS.

If anyone figures out other ways to navigate an iPod with an iConnect and a non-nav radio, please share.

John.

[jcdas]

It's been a while since my last post on this subject. Get your favouite beverage. This is a bit of a long read.

After the new battery, everything seemed to be OK for a while. But then I had another dead battery. The car got towed to the dealer again, and they worked all day trying to figure out what was causing the battery to drain.

At the end of the day, I dropped in to see how they were making out.
They had an ammeter in line with the battery, with the windows open, and everything turned off. Constant drain of about 2.5 amps. They were waiting, watching the clock, figuring that after some amount of time, the car electronics would go to sleep, and the current drain would stop. Nothing happening. So finally, I reached in through the window, and unplugged the iConnect. The current drain drops to 25 milliamps.

So the problem IS the iConnect. It isn't getting hot, so it isn't using up the electricity, but it keeps ALL the microprocessors in the car in an active state, and collectively, they all use up 2.5 amps, enough to drain the battery overnight.

So I leave it disconnected, and the car is perfectly happy. No dead battery in 4 months.

While it's disconnected, I begin email & phone correspondense with both the 'vendor' gm_geek (Mark Igolnikov - cadillacintegration.com) and the iConnect manufacturer Smart Park (Roger Hooker Jr.). I've exchanged dozens of emails since JUNE.

Mark told me twice that he sent me a replacement unit. No package tracking number though, and NOTHING has every arrived. He's been saying he will get the problem solved, but no resolution since the beginning of June.

Roger tells me that their 3 year warranty is only via the original vendor. So he won't help me. He thinks that the problem is related to Mark's wiring harness. He won't give me more detailed technical info for me to diagnose the problem.

So I seem to be out of luck getting this iConnect to work properly.
When it is plugged in, it does work nice. It does what I want. It does control my iPod. I can navigate playlists fine. External AUX works OK.

IT JUST KILLS THE BATTERY.

I waited a long time to post this, as I didn't want to damage anyones reputation. I've waited long enough.

Not sure if any of you SOCAL folks could drop by and see if you can get some assistance for me...

At any rate, my recommendation...

DON'T BUY AN ICONNECT. DON'T DEAL WITH GM_GEEK.

There are probably other products (Neucleus) that work more reliably. Other vendors might have better support. I wouldn't buy ANYTHING from Smart Park again.