[activereality]

Originally Posted by bryanp

I got mine installed this weekend. I agree that if you're just installing the radio with no extras, everything you need is in the box and the install/setup is straight forward. The unit works great and is a nice plug and play modernization to an older car.

Altogether, I think I spent about eight hours (this included cleaning removed trim pieces, vacuuming under the removed rear seat and cleaning up afterwards). Some of that time was not necessary. I removed the glove box (and wasted a bunch of time until I figured out the cup holders hold it in), which really isn't necessary. You can easily fish the power lead through by removing the dash side panel and also fish gps and mic wires through from there without removing the glove box.

The mic install was my biggest fear, and wound up being the quickest and easiest. It's mounted to the side of the rear view mount. The GPS antenna is in the A pillar behind the air bag. I had thought about putting it under the dash, but couldn't get it in from under and didn't want to pop the center speaker grill. It works well in the A pillar.

I also added Sirius radio (I had it with the factory one). I ran a 20' extension cable from the factory antenna. That was more than long enough. I saw pictures showing the factory Sirius radio in the back left of the trunk. Mine was in center (and I've since found several posts locating it there). If you're trying to connect to the factory antenna, first check in the trunk floor. You'll save a lot of time putting the side lining back. I am getting alternator whine when listening to Satellite. I'm guessing that's from running the antenna wire along with the power on the passenger side. I need to move that to the drivers side and hope that fixes the issue. My factory satellite harness had two antenna connectors (this was apparently changed to one in all cars built after 3/2006). I picked one and it works. When listening to Sirius, it only displays the channel/song/artist. There is no artwork displayed. You can pause and restart the current song.

I used a cheap trunk handle rear camera. This gave me some self inflicted time wasted. The one I bought has a large plastic sleeve where the reverse light leads join the wires. I managed to short it when trying to get through the inside of the trunk. I spent a lot of time trying to diagnose why the camera was only getting a black screen until I just finally decided to bend that plastic piece and the picture popped on the screen. What I did learn is that my car (2006 330i, manual transmission and no pdc) does give a reverse signal to the head unit. I also get wheel direction and dynamic parking lines. Wiring the camera directly to the reverse lights as Jeff mentioned would be the quickest and easiest way to go. Reviews for my camera all recommended using a relay so I used one. The maker also included a relay in the box (from reviews, that was a new edition). My cable tube from the car to trunk lid was too tight to even fit a coat hanger through. I zip tied my wires to the outside of it and poked slits through the boot on both ends. I'm going to buy a wire wrap to put around it and probably use some silicon caulking around the slits. I also ran a second line from the red 12v on the headunit to power a second relay. This did work. I get both automatic reverse camera when I put the car in reverse, and I can manually turn on the camera by switching to it on the head unit. I confirmed there is only 12v coming from the headunit when the unit is switched to camera. I don't know if I'll ever use the manual option, but it was neat that I could make it work.

My car has the L7 system. The directions for how to hook that up were thin. It took me a while to figure out I needed to unclip the optical input on the Dynavin MOS box and remove the inserted grey coupling. Once I did that, I was able to pop in the factory double optical plug, I also spent time trying to figure out what to plug in to the other side of the MOS adapter. It appears it's just an extra socket. All I connected was the optical plug and the harness block from the main Dynavin one.

I also wasted a lot of time trying to get the cigarette lighter out of the old ashtray. I eventually just pushed really hard with a slotted screw driver in the clear plastic slot on the backside. I was initially afraid it would break doing that, but there was no other obvious way to get it out. In the new ashtray assembly, the door will not close if you put the actual lighter in the socket. If you need to put in a usb charger, the socket is there for convenience.

I bought the flush USB plug from jandtdistributing. This mounted really well in the back side of the center console tray (the one where iDrive would go).

The one aspect that disappoints me is the loss of the fader control (with factory L7 amp). I prefer a more forward sound stage with some back fill versus being surrounded. The MOS adapter only takes a left and right connection. The FAQ on jandtdistributing does state this.

The other thing to figure out is if there's a way to sync the time from the N7 to the car. It's annoying seeing --:-- on the car's display.

Saving FM stations is labeling them in the presets as whatever song was playing at the time I saved it. I've not figured out how to get it either be the station/frequency or to auto-refresh.

The steering wheel controls can flip saved radio/satellite stations. They do not allow me to change tracks over bt or usb/android audio. The volume ones always work. The phone buttons also work. The source and circle buttons do nothing.

I do have the SOS error. I'm going to read up on programming this week so I can turn that off. Alternatively, I could probably mount the factory headunit in the trunk with the Satellite opticals or with a y mos cable from it.

That's about all I can think about posting right now. It's a nice upgrade and I'm happy. I think that someone with little experience and doing things straight forward could easily be done in 2-4 hours. Removing/replacing trim to run the power line is the most time consuming aspect.

Great write up! Glad to hear it went through nicely for you!!

For the 'Only two connected from MOST adapter' issue: I ran a pair of splitters and that has worked well for me. Sound quality is great, and I get full surround of PDC and Voice/Nav oriented stuff.

For the 'Camera' selected from the N7 menu - I did the same. I eventually found that I had connected the Camera trigger wire on the back of the HU to the wire coming from my camera cable. This was causing some issues. Once I removed this, all was well. I am also running two relays - good clear video signal during day and night. However, I have both relays in the trunk.

I had the same kind of issue for the Camera connections to the trunk lid - as I used a trunk handle camera. I have not decided on the 'fix' I'll use yet, but it is temporarily protected with some loom wrap and electrical tape. I did put some tape around wires at the points where they can 'rub' against metal, for just a bit of protection until I figure it out. I might just vertically cut the existing boot thew wires are in and then zip tie it closed or use loom wrap or maybe just tape it closed.

For the USB connection: I plan on using a blanking plate in the center armrest. I am going to try and get two connections on it - one for the carplay and one for regular media - I'm thinking of using a USB 3.0 cable for the carplay and 2.0 for media - not for functionality, but the ease of identifying which is which haha. I have also read of a few wireless carplay adapters. I might try one out in a few months, but I am really liking that functionality. With the super responsive N7 screen, carplay works great and really like it.

I may be using the extra ashtray in the future, to add some aux circuits. If I do, I might run a USB to that as well, but i do like having 2 12 vdc dedicated plugs in there. Maybe not needed, but good to have, just in case lol.


I have been looking at one of the unicarscan obd2 readers or similar and getting the bimmercode app. I see a lot of people have good experience on our models, vice newer ones sometimes haha. There are a few things I would like to code and it would be nice to get it done easily haha.

Thanks again for the great write up!! How about a pic too!? Grats on the new system!