RNS-E repair/replacement/upgrade options

[octal]

I have one car right now - a B7 (2006 A4 Q SDN 2.0T Auto); in pretty good shape at 146k miles. I drive a fair bit, including on road trips and in cities, and while I've looked at other cars, I still like this car better, except for one thing -- the nav/audio/bluetooth. I'd appreciate some advice. I'll probably switch daily driver to a Tesla Model 3 and a truck in a couple years, but I'm willing to spend $1-2k to completely fix things, or less ideally.

I have RNS-E, a dension with 30-pin spec dock and then a 30 pin to lightning adapter, factory bluetooth, bose, sirius.

The main things I dislike are:
1) My DVD seems to stop reading periodically and then lock up the machine. It was a dodgy update disc, so I'm going to re-burn from a stored copy. Otherwise, do I clean it? Or is it the drive dying? Would a non-DVD-R be better read?

2) Bluetooth audio quality (the mic/speaker) kinda sucks; not sure if it's just my mic is bad or what. Is there an upgrade/fix?

3) Audio (either direct 30 pin or via adapter) seems to have lots of ground loop noise or something. Whenever a phone is plugged into the cable, there's a high pitched whining noise, even if it's not the selected audio source. Also, I'd like to upgrade to direct lightning if possible with a new dock.

4) Nav on RNS-E is obviously not as good as modern/live nav, especially live traffic. My phone with google maps is overall superior, but I really like the driver information display.

I'm trying to figure out if it's worth replacing RNS-E entirely with something else (what?), or fixing components. Good installer in Seattle or SFBA would be good to know, too -- the place I used in Mountain View CA last time was not.

[coombs]

I think this thread will have everything you need if you decide to replace:http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...t-Nav-installs

If mine were to die I'd get the android one that's mentioned there. I just got my A4 on Saturday, but I had the same unit in my A3 many years ago and while its definitely dated it gets the job done for me. I haven't had any issues with the Bluetooth, so I'd bet your MIC is going if people can't hear you well. With that said, if it broke I don't think I'd bother to fix it and just get the one in that thread.

[Charles.waite]

Most feature packed solution would just be an aftermarket headunit.

My bluetooth is fine so I'm not sure what the issue is there. Was the bluetooth a retrofit or installed at teh factory? The mic is in the headliner console where the sunroof and light controls are.

I have yet to see any direct to lightning adapters hit the market. I have no idea why, but its been, what, 4 years of the lightning connector and not a bit of aftermarket support for it. Who knows...

Ground loop noise is probably a bad or miswired adapter harness. I bought an adapter for my b6 and one of the pins was detached and grounding out on an adjacent pin causing tons of noise. I fixed that and the issue was solved. Could be something as simple as that.

Nav disc sounds like a bad burn or scratched disc. For the discs I've burned, I only use Verbatim DVD+R-DL media and burn it really slow and verify the burn after. Never had an issue with seeking or anything.