chulann

Hi All,
Bought a 2005 525d E60. Looking at adding the BMW iPod adapter to the stereo. Got a quote of ?360 from Wallastons BMW in Northampton. Anyone know if this is a decent price? Any other recommendations?

Cheers!

wickster

I got quoted about the same, but was told I'd loose my 6 disc stacker in the glove box though!WTF
So looking at getting a denison gateway 500 instead, get to keep the stacker and can do loads more with the unit. I've seen them advertised cheaper then ?360, but you have to update the idrive to accept mp3's, so a little more expense..

richiemail

I paid ?390 for the ipod connector, so I'd say this is good. I was quoted as much as ?700 though! I'm very with it, though there are limitations. It can only reference 255 artists, 255 albums, 255 playlists etc. I bought a 32Gb iPod touch 2nd Gen since I was going to have more then halve my collection to meet this requirement. I have exactly 255 artists, 255 albums. Searching on the album or artist views takes 2-3minutes to load the first time each time you turn the car on. Then it will play the first entry from that list automatically.

Overall, it's finicky, but I love having the songs show through the iDrive.

N.B. The item is about ?200, the rest is coding, so Dension or OEM, you'll have to pay for the coding.

Edit: also if you have the 2nd gen ipod touch, or iphone 3G, the OEM solution won't charge it, since the new ipod's don't support the 12v old firewire charging profile, the OEM adaptor doesn't support the new 5v USB profile. You can buy adaptors that plug inline to fix this.

chulann

The 255 limit is a real big PITA as is the 2 minute startup time. Will have to think about whether it's worth that to have it in the iDrive...

nigxdoof

To avoid that problem, you can get the Dension Gateway 500.

chulann

The Denison really looks like a runner - especially with the Bluetooth attachment. The BMW Bluetooth option is ?1,300.... Any other recommendations for the Denison?

AB05

Just had one fitted to my E60 at my local BMW dealer, ?442, had the Dension Gateway 500 supplied & fitted ?400 and it would not display on sceen, I was told I had then take it to BMW for the update at a cost of ?68 and then was told it might still not work. The firm that fitted the Denison 500 removed it with a full refund. I then took it to BMW to have their unit fitted, it took a full day because it had to be programed by this very expensive machine, Lol....

I have an Ipod Classic 160gb, It doesn't play & show all tracks and takes quite a few minutes to load, also it only shows one playlist which is a bit disappointing, In all not to bad.

h2009

When I had my ipod fitting done it cost me ?320, but given what I know now I would have gone for the ACM kit, and USB attachment for it - it costs more but there is whole lot more that can be done with it.

tiangco.a

Here in canada my cost for the ipod kit was $316 CND, then to reprogram would be 3 hours at $130 labor...Giving me a total of $706 plus tax! Im still undecided

chulann

Took a trip up to Sytner in Coventry this morning. After initially saying that you could only play MP3s if you have the auxiliary connection, he went off and checked. The verdict was that you can get the stereo to play MP3s from a CD if you have the professional audio or professional navigation. He looked up the chassis number and wasn't able to tell for sure, so he's going to ring BMW and let me know.

Does this tally with what others have been told? Also, if I can't get the MP3 upgrade, anyone know if the Dension will work?

There is one other unusual thing. When I go into the OCD (Push right on the iDrive controller), one of the items is "Distance to destination" (and is always at -5999). The dealer printout has "0698 Area Code 2 for DVD" and "Country-specific Navigation activation" under options. Are either of these things normal without navigation?