My E60 is a Right Hand Drive, and my GPS is currently plastered to the lower-right corner of my windscreen.
I'm planning to do a hard wire by routing the cable round the windscreen/headliner and into the sunroof controls.

My question is whether the power supplied through the sunroof controls (thin green/yellow wire according to some threads);
is enough to power the GPS? Has anyone else hardwired their GPS using this method?

Cheers

 

I tried to hardwire my GPS at first, but got worried because the power source doesn't seem to shut off for the hardwire method.

I decided to use the cigarette lighter under the passenger side footwell, and kind of took it apart and plugged in the cigarette power adapter for the GPS power. At least I know the power wont drain from the cigarette lighter once I turn off the car. I know this isn't ideal place for you, but just what I felt when I thought of hardwiring method.


I'm sure there are people that have done it with no problem.

 

Be careful that the wires you're looking at are actually 12 volt wires - a lot of the E60's kit is switched by a lower voltage (5 volts??) and the control unit does all the serious switching work. I had this dilemma some tima ago, but I didn't want my SatNav on the screen leaving marks for the riff-raff to tell that I had a Nav in the car. My Garmin power supply is rated for a relatively high current too, and the electronics for the power supply are in the lighter plug, so I couldn't just chop off the plug and wire it in.
I ended up mounting my unit in the small cubby forward of the gear lever, with the Garmin sticking out so I could see the screen. I then removed the centre console and put a lighter socket in parallel with the one in the ashtray and plugged my Garmin supply into that. A hole was drilled in the back of the small cubby to get the power wire to the Nav. It works well and the unit is out of sight mostly. I tend to be lazy and just remove the unit when I park, and leave the mounting in situ, as it doesn't stick out very much - and it's not a usual place to have a SatNav. It is not ideal, as I have to look down at the screen to see it, but the voice commands do the trick, and I rarely have to glance at it. Signal reception is reduced, but not much and I haven't had any problems with it. Shortly after I posted my SatNav siting on here, another member came up with a better idea - get some wide, clear sticky tape and apply this to the ledge below the iDrive. This allows you to use the sucker on your Nav. I think he then ran a wire between the ledge and the lateral trim and down to the torch holder - this is what I'd do on my next E60!

Is the UK the only market without a socket in the passenger footwell???

Mike