320d E90 MOST Fibres damaged

[daxiet]

I have spent most of the day reading how to resolve issues with the Logic 7 amplifier as I had no audio as of this morning. Turns out a rat paid my car a visit and munched through one of the fibres just behind the back seat in the boot. Also shaved off some shielding on a couple others and a set of speaker wires.

So now some questions I hope someone knows the answers to:
-from my understanding the system is a logical loop, break one fibre take down the entire system?
-what type of fibre optic cable is used in the BMW, is it typical multi-mode/shortwave, can it be spliced as we do with communications fibres?
-if it can't be spliced and needs to be replaced, how difficult is it to trace the fibre pairs back into the dash?

Questions aside, now to hope I have gotten rid of the rat which evidently has a sweet tooth for fibre optics.

 

[daxiet]

All up and running again, took a gamble that the MOST bus is a low frequency/speed bus and simply cut the ends of the broken fibre and joined them in heat shrink with some wire support. Seems the system is quite resilient, also had to repair a pair of speaker wires which the rat had a go at.

As luck would have it the rat chewed through one of the 2 main fibres running to the front of the car, not the ones out of the junction box on the back left wheel arch behind the seat.

2 other fibres heading from the junction box into the boot had also been sampled, ~40% chewed into, I simply insulated them to prevent interference from other light sources.

 

[Smartiesman]

Firstly......how did a RAT get in your car?
:fencelook:

 

[daxiet]

After removing the left side cover in the boot I found there is a hole in the side of the the body which seems to allow access from under the car. Simply put, a garden variety rat can easily gain access to the boot on the E90, I have sealed the hole for now.

We suspect the rat was picked up last week sometime, an old office is being renovated next to the offices my wife works from, the car was parked close to the building being renovated. We suspect the rat had to find alternate accommodation and where better than a warm E90, can trace the rats movements in the engine bay and boot. The thing drops a log every couple seconds it seems. I gather it liked the warmth of the engine bay, but with the car being outside on Monday night the engine bay got too cold and it went to find more favourable accommodation in the boot.

 

[S1NGH 001]

Damn rats

 

[Smartiesman]

Glad you found the problem on both dude.
:thumbs: