Nine

Wilchwitz, I know exactly what you are saying....Its amazing to me that there is no one that seems to know difinitively if it can or cant be done....I too wasted 25 bucks for the one day viewing of the TIS and it failed to give me the information I was looking for. You metioned 10 and 12 PIN connectors, I dont know. Im baseing everthing on the SA 609 retrofit instructions, and that is not mentioned. I also contacted my dealer as how much the retrofit kit was (65 90 0 390 844). He said its a valid number and the price is $2600, however he doesnt show any and would have to contact BMW to see if they still make the kit.
The retrofit kit has you (the installer) making several wiring connections, placing wires into connectors. It mentions wires for navagation system cable, CCC fan wiring harness, GPS and voice recognition. Im pretty sure the GPS isnt there cause its connected in the TCU in the trunk, so I moved on to the other three connections to see exactly what was missing.... I looked under the dash at the CAS to see if the navagation system wire was present in the plug (PIN 31) connected to the CAS and it was. Now what the other end of this wire is connect to I dont know, I would suspect its in plug X13814 PIN 12. The retrofit kit says you had to make this connection, but its already there, this gives me hope...I then wanted to see if the wiring for the fan and voice was there, unfortunatly I believe I have to remove the M-ASK to find this out, because those wiring harnesses are most likely behind the M-ASK unit....The reason Im looking for these wires is because the retrofit kit has you building these wires, placing them in plugs and connecting to specific PINs. My thought was if those wires are already there, then maybe the only one missing is GPS?
Unfortunately I think its gonna take someone to buy the retrofit kit or CCC/monitor and take things apart and its probably going to be me.

Wilchwitz

Nine,

I have never gone behind the dash to actually check the wiring. I suspected that Nav Prep was having the proper wiring harness installed at the factory. However, the retro fit kit available to other markets includes additional wiring, as you say. Why this cannot be installed in a US market car, I just don't know. As I mentioned before, if there was a way for BMW to charge big bucks to accomplish this, I am sure they would. So, there has to be a reason why not. As for the voice recognition, I have that in a limited way with the CPT9000 phone. I can voice dial by number or phone book. So some of the capabilities are there.

This sounds like an expensive experiment you are considering. If you go ahead with it, there are a lot of us who would be interested in the results. Good Luck.

Nine

Ive looked into this a little further, I have found out that the US kit is no-longer available, but my dealer is doing a nation wide search for one. They said 7 dealers show it in stock. My dealer also said that if I install the nav system they will be happy to initialize it, if they can.
I was actually thinking about buying individual parts, but I went back to the kit because I couldnt find a listing for the LVDS wire needed for the 8.8 monitor. It appears the one used by the 6.5 monitor is not usable, taped off and set aside.
The kit according to my dealer is about $2700, which if it works isnt too bad, but if it doesnt cant be returned because its electronics....so you might see it on e-bay.

So what Im guessing is...the cables that arent there are the LVDS cable for the 8.8 monitor and the GPS connection. The other wires are there and would just need to be tapped into....of course, even though the running of the GPS wire would be a pain, it looks doable and I too wonder why BMW just doesnt support it....it could be a painful $3000 dollar lesson.

Nine

I just got off the phone with BMWNA rep, they told me the same thing everyone else is hearing....the prewiring for the nav system isnt there and that is why you cannot have it retrofitted....but, he also told me, though he couldnt confirm, that he believes its more than just adding the wires, he believes that the systems are integrated together to the point that changing one might disrupt another. Hes not sure, but believes this to be so otherwise BMW would support the change. He also said BMW isnt in the habbit of retrofitting things and would rather it be installed at build so dont look for a retrofit kit in the future....he also reminded me that if I change anything it voids my waranty.
So, all that being said, I might be out of the game...I still am curious as to whether it can be done and have no problem spending the money if I was sure, but I really dont want to ruin a perfectly good 530i.
Ill still be investigating and it looks like, forever wondering.

Wilchwitz

Well, you went further than I ever did to try for the retro-fit. This has added to our knowledge but it seems we are back to the same conclusion that it can't be done without the nav prep option.

I'll know better next time. I'll be sure to order all the "prep" options. If my car had included the Nav Prep and Sat Radio Prep, I'd have both by now.

big_ipaq

Common... You are saying that my M-ASK car is not really playing CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs full of MP3s I've written on my computer? Really? It must be some frequencies from radio, the sounds I am listening to... And BMW, wrote MP3 at the bottom of iDrive screen instead of "Radio Noise from Simple CD player unit on M-ASK BMW E60 cars, simulating very well MP3 abilities..."

Nine

I think my next tactic is to talk to the service manager at my dealer....explain the whole thing to him and see what he can find out....
Ill let you know what he says....

Wilchwitz

I think the difference is in the market. I was describing the situation with US market cars built in 2003 and early 2004. There is a difference with the M-ASK and other features on cars for other markets. If you can get MP3s that's great. But my US non-nav car built in April 2004 cannot. I should have made that clearer.

big_ipaq

Okay, you did not specified the market you're talking about, hence my correction...

Anyway, I am pretty sure MP3 can be played regardless of build date, nav/non-nav. Are you sure about this? Dealers are full of bullshit when it comes to software updates.

I am too lazy to search the forum, just posted what I've read. My car is built before April 2004.

Wilchwitz

The CD player in my car is only that, a simple CD player. Just like the one you can buy for $20 at Walmart. It cannot recognize MP3 files. I don't know if this is the same for all E60s but it is true for the older US market E60s without nav. Pretty sure anyway...