Hi guys,

Bad week so far. Ordered an AV input plug for the TV (to add a DVB tuner) which was so badly made that trying to install the BMW plug inline caused their female plug to split (cheap plastic). Paid £35 for this but waiting for a refund.

Then picked up an Alpine T222 amp to drive a sub but instruction on home page don't match my car (ie. they assume there is an amp installed) - so will have to work that one out myself.

So on to the supposedly easiest job - install of Dension Gateway 300. I'm going mad here. This is my second unit and it behaves exactly the same as the 1st - ie. rubbish - doesn't work

The User instructions are very basic but maybe adequate. Install instructions are generic and can basically be ignored as they are of no use with a BMW install. So where am I going wrong? Could someone please give me some pointers if they have installed this device in their X. The helpdesk at the www.ipodcarkitdirect.co.uk is some kind of artificial intellegence automated system that serves no purpose other than to wind you up.

The loom is placed inline with the factory quadlock - pins 2,8,9 from plug B are taken from the Dension plug and installed into the original since I have TV/Nav etc and their plug doesnt carry those signals. Had to work this out for myself (thanks to help from John), and a pinout of the quadlock. The installation instructions are so useless and it is definately NOT plug and play. If I hadnt bought this in November I'd be push for a full refund but I delayed installing for 2 months. Tried 3 times (all with the same result) - got a replacement - and now back to square one 4 months later !

So here's what happens.

Battery off. Take out B plug from Dension quadlock. Extract pins 2,8,9 and swap them with original pins 2,8,9 (CD ground, + and -) in the BMW B plug. Disconnect quadlock from back of tuner/amp and plug theirs inline (installing the BMW B&C plugs in theirs. Their B plug comes wired just with these pins which is useless if you have TV NAV etc

The Factory CD has now been removed since Dension have discontinued the CD retention plug (I assume it was a pile of rubbish too).

Then connect the external Hard drive (80gb 4200rpm) - I have also used a kingston 4gb USB flash drive with same results. On this disk there are a few folders with MP3 in, and in the root there is the GW_CFG.BIN file renamed from original BMW file. This is to enable text on the BMW head unit apparantly.

Battery on. Wait - between 5 minutes and 12 hours results the same.

Hit the mode button to move from FM TO CD, Select CD 6 (source menu) - and track 4 (USB mode). Nothing.

All the time I'm doing this the CD track number randomly displays 99,44,32,etc. Same if I select CD 1,2,3 or 4 (which should playlist,artist albums)...

Not a sound from the system during this.

This is a replacement unit with the latest firmware.

Car has 16:9 NAV v32, TV (ana), BT (newish ULF), and no DSP.

I'm beginning to think that this is the biggest waste of £150 I ever did. Anyone else have experience of this hardware. Please dont tell me how great other devices are (Intravee etc.) as this will just be salt in the wound

Thanks in advance guys.

Kev.