jetlimaximize

Hey guys..

I'm new to this forum..

I have a 2004 (but built in 03 of July) 530i... i look everywhere for a IPOD connection.. i have no Nav.. everything is standard .. Does anyone have a 530i built in 03?? or is it even possible..?? i dont wanna have to go threw changing out the whole head unit and get a aftermarket unit even though some people say it will be better..

2. Looking for a good deal for the front M-Tech bumper??

3. Which angel eye is better (AngeliBright V3.0 or MTEC V2 Pre-LCI)

4. any other mods i can do for my car????

Thanks guys....

kscarrol

I had a December 2003 build 545, no navigation, and I had the BMW iPod adaptor added with no problems. It replaces the 6-disc changer in the glove box, but if you don't have that, no worries as the wiring is there and you can still add it. Installation will require a software update so it's not cheap but it does work well...

jetlimaximize

hey Kscarol..

it says its prewired for a 6 cd changer.. but i dont have a 6 CD changer.. i called up Garry and some local BMW around the area and they said all the same thing.. That any of the 5 series starting oct of 2004 can can only work.. the production date of my car is to old and a classic i guess.. do you think i should just still buy the BMW IPOD connection and risk the fact shooting out $3-4 BILLS..??? i reallie need a IPOD connection.. i hate the FM Trasmitter..

kscarrol

I think your dealer is misinformed. As you can see from my post my car was built in Dec 2003, well before the Oct 04 date you are being quoted. The BMW iPod connection worked perfectly for me. Do understand the BMW kit is a patch. There are some limits on the number of playlist and songs you can have so don't buy an 80Gb iPod to put in the glove box. I bought a 16Gb Nano and just left it in the car...

htkipy

Hi!

My previous BMW was 530i, manufactured 06/2003 (one of the first E60's, I guess). I had iPod retrofit installed at a local BMW dealer and it worked fine. The car had previously no CDC installed and the radio was simple Business model, and I actually don't know what they had to do to get iPod working, but anyway it was not very difficult. Price was about 500? (parts & labour).

Maybe a bit off-topic, but I put it here anyway: The only thing that bothered me (it's a feature in BMW:s interface) was that there are limitations in how many songs the interface can read from iPod. Manual says 1000 songs (500 songs in 7 Series), but it seemed, that the limit was 500 song in 5 Series also. And only max 256 artist, albums, playlists and genres, all alphabetically starting from A. Since I have iPod Classic with 120 GB disk and about 5000 songs from hundreds of artists and albums, this limitation was getting very annoying, because in the end, there was no way to find all the music stored in iPod. You can of course do tricks with playlists, but because with playlists there is the same 256 limit, this way is going to its end, too.

Since I traded my 530 for 2004 545, I have now been considering Dension, but I have heard, that it has also significant problems indexing iPod's data, i.e. if the iPod's content has changed and there is a lot of data, it can take about half an hour to get it playing. I'm not sure if this is true, if somebody has better knowledge of this, please comment.

Right now I think the best solution for me might be simple AUX (or maybe US retrofit. My current CD-player has MP3 retrofit installed, so I can manage with it while wondering what to do next...

buddy

yeah the 500 song limit is a hinderance but I have gotten around it by creating seperate playlist I have a 30 gig ipod touch with about 4300 songs and can access all of my music. I have thru itunes formatted my playlist as follows 1 thru 9 each haveing 500 songs in it and in alphabetical order by artist. With that said I do have to by trial and error getting to a specific artist or song Say I want to listen to Eryka Badu I have to go to my number three list play a song it will show the artist and then from there i can diduce how far into the list to go. I used to be able to go into artist list under mp3 3 or 4 and select like that but ipods latest firmware update killed that option they won't even load anymore that is why i had to get creative. I also set up seperate list like jazz 1, jazz 2, hip hop and individual artist like Maze, and others that is the way i got around the 500 song naming limit