I got my Gw500 from Joe(Fantastic 5). I followed the excellent write ups from Muttley and used Bruce Miranda's method of 'no splicing' hook-up. Worked llike a charm! Took me about 1.5 hours, but i think I could do it in less than 45 minutes now. The Dension is a nice piece, but as stated previously, the instructions are a little lacking. Bruce's method cost me $30 in BMW parts. Is it worth it? I don't know...it's certainly neat, but I could have saved $25 and used some inline splicers. The dension works as advertised on the website.

My only problem is that my idrive knob gives me resistance when i try to scroll. It did the same thing when I was playing mp3's from the cd slot, so I don't think it's a function of the dension. Has anyone encountered this problem and is there a fix?

If anyone needs help w/ the install, drop me a line!

Will

 

I lot of people say that my mods become expensive but that's just me - I go to extreme lengths to ensure that I use only OEM connectors and parts. I also only use wire that BMW sell ! (ok maybe that is beign a bit an*l)

But the benefit is that you get absolutely no fitment issues or loose connections and EVERYTHING is reversible in a matter or minutes. The last thing you need with these kinds of mods is that after you put the dash back and drive a bit you start running into dodgy connections.

At that time I didn't know BMW did a 2 pole pin and socket holder but they do.

2 POL pin terminal 61 13 8 373 583
2 POL socket holder 61 13 6 925 634

However I don't think that will reduce the price that much. Didn't think it would be $30 though.

I think the bit about the iDrive knob being stiff is 'normal' I think BMW themselves knew that this would happen which is why they removed this feature on the LCI cars, that made scrolling through longer lists better.

 

Hey Bruce!! I in no way meant to criticize you. I owe you and Muttley a tremendous amount of gratitude. I don't know if i would have done it had it not been for y'alls write ups. The parts were about $5 a piece..pretty steep for just a wire and connector, but it is clean and ultimately, I'm glad I did it your way. I did manage to blow a 5 amp fuse by accidently touching the hot wires...it was easy enough to fix, but i didn't expect the wires to be hot. The only mod to your write up would be to take out the 5 amp fuse that powers the cd changer...it's the fuse furthest to the right.

So the stiff wheel is normal??

thanks Bruce,
will

 

Will,

can't recall when BMW stopped using it, but the iDrive wheel used to come with "force feedback", giving resistance as you scrolled through various menu structures. My old 545 didn't have Nav so I didn't get the force feedback. It kind of sounds like what you describe. Eventually BMW stopped using the force feedback...

Ken

 

that's what it must be. i'll aask my sa if i can get it fixed or disabled. I'm at erich's, but your car isnt there!
will

 

If your car has haptic feedback, it is not possible to disable it or to adjust it.

 

Was out and about while the kids were napping. But JSpira is right, can't disable the feature...

 

The feedback is there on long lists as the iDrive Loads the rest of the List. Just wait a second or two to enable the iDrive to "catch up". Then it will scroll "normally".

 

Thanks for teh info. Guess I can live with it.
Will

 

I think I have the similar idrive knob resistance problem when scrolling on my may 05 built 545. The problem is only with MP3 songs on either the single CD drive or IPOD.

Scrolling between songs already displayed on the screen is fine, but scrolling to songs
above or below the screen requires some force (b/c of the resistance). Even so, it's not a clean scroll, it will jump like two songs up or down..

This problem is with both my CD drive and the ipod I recently installed. I tried Waiting for a minute for the system to finish loading but the scrolling problem is still there.. and my CD only has about 15 MP3 songs.

If anyone knows of a fix for this problem, please let me know..

Thanks much.
Chris