E46 Business CD Aux Input / Recoding required?

[doyleeoin]

So what I was thinking was I'd need to mount this somewhere (e.g. in the compartment under the climate control) and could then plug my device into it with a short male-male Aux cable.

This is exactly the way I have it in mine.

When you say you need to remove the aircon and gearknob trim, is that only if you are running the cable down to the ashtray or cupholders? If I'm installing it in the little compartment under the aircon I assume I have to remove the aircon unit itself, but not any other trim?

You won't have to remove the trim around the gear stick if you're putting it in under the aircon controls.

[CitizenKane]

This is exactly the way I have it in mine.

Fantastic. Any tips for installing it? I presume it's pretty straightforward - the installation instructions even give you the exact size drill bits for each hole (3mm for the two screw holes and 8mm for the hole in the middle for the jack itself).

[doyleeoin]

It's very simple really

Remove the strip of trim above the glovebox first (plastic trim removal tools are very handy to have for it)
Remove the trim above the radio.
Remove the two screws holding the radio
Remove radio (it just pulls out once dislodged, take the cables off the back)
Pull out aircon controls by pressing from behind.
Pull out compartment below aircon controls

Once you're done drilling and routing the aux cable just put it back in the reverse order. The hardest part is putting the radio back in because all the wires can get squeezed behind it. But it's grand really.

[CitizenKane]

It's very simple really

Remove the strip of trim above the glovebox first (plastic trim removal tools are very handy to have for it)
Remove the trim above the radio.
Remove the two screws holding the radio
Remove radio (it just pulls out once dislodged, take the cables off the back)
Pull out aircon controls by pressing from behind.
Pull out compartment below aircon controls

Once you're done drilling and routing the aux cable just put it back in the reverse order. The hardest part is putting the radio back in because all the wires can get squeezed behind it. But it's grand really.

Thanks. I've done the first 4 of those 6 steps a fair few times already (when I was trying out the various Aux cables). The rest sounds straightforward enough. I'll be giving it a go this weekend.

[Moe]

its got a nice little front plate on it that I dont have, be a shame not to get it looking nice

[CitizenKane]

Agreed! From an ergonomic perspective the location below the aircon unit makes most sense to me, albeit it will be fairly hidden.

[CitizenKane]

Well got this fitted pretty easily. The Aux sound quality isn’t great though. I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but it’s noticeably poor compared to the radio and CD. Not sure if that’s down to the unit itself, the connection, or something else.

[JohnH]

Well got this fitted pretty easily. The Aux sound quality isn’t great though. I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but it’s noticeably poor compared to the radio and CD. Not sure if that’s down to the unit itself, the connection, or something else.

Sounds like the perfect excuse for an upgraded BM54 from Carphonics with stage 2 upgrade and Bluetooth stemreaming

[Moe]

I dont understand why the sound would be bad, maybe the cable is nicked or a connection is not being made properly somewhere....

[CitizenKane]

It might have been the 3.5mm cable I was using. I just bought a new (longer) one and sound quality seems a lot better now.

It's an archaic way of listening to music for sure (a far cry from CIC iDrive when I had my LCI e92...), but I do like being able to keep the dash OEM and volume controls on the steering wheel.