Pulling the cell phone components out of the arm rest?

[BMW DIY Guy]

Howdy all!

Yet another question. Has anyone pulled the integrated cell phone components and tray out of the armrest? It would be nice to open up that upper section for more real storage and not a useless 15yo cell phone design.

Thanks!

[Qsilver7]

I'm sure you can...I did it to my e38 back in 2003. I remove the phone/phone cradle/etc...and replaced it with trays that were available.

Pull up the e53 center console/armrest diagrams for an idea of what needs to be removed...and what you can get to replace things with.

[BMW DIY Guy]

Originally Posted by Qsilver7

I'm sure you can...I did it to my e38 back in 2003. I remove the phone/phone cradle/etc...and replaced it with trays that were available.

Pull up the e53 center console/armrest diagrams for an idea of what needs to be removed...and what you can get to replace things with.

Great thoughts..

This appears to be the diagram if you have the phone components installed.
RealOEM.com - Online BMW Parts Catalog

I will see if armed with that part number if I can swap out the cell phone tray for some other component part.

Thanks!

[BMW DIY Guy]

Originally Posted by Qsilver7

I'm sure you can...I did it to my e38 back in 2003. I remove the phone/phone cradle/etc...and replaced it with trays that were available.

Pull up the e53 center console/armrest diagrams for an idea of what needs to be removed...and what you can get to replace things with.

So pulling through realoem and literally on the phone with ECS tuning right now.. any chance you kept part numbers or anything?

[BMW DIY Guy]

If anyone has the normal tray/compartment under the cover, would you mind taking a picture of it and posting here?

I *THINK* I may have found the right tray piece to replace it, but since I dont know what it should look like, I have no way of knowing for sure.

thanks!

[Qsilver7]

Originally Posted by raichean

So pulling through realoem and literally on the phone with ECS tuning right now.. any chance you kept part numbers or anything?

The part nbrs I would have would have been for my e38 7 series...totally different than your e53 X5.

But we're kinda in the same perdicament...can you upload an image of your center armrest set-up?

My 06 (see pic below) didn't come with a phone/phone cradle/eject box...if it did...I would suppose the replacement would be #11 in the 1st diagram below...which appears to be the equivalent to the replacement of the phone cradle for the storage tray in my e38 7 series. I'm not sure what your model year is and if the center armrest would be different.

{#11 in diagram above would replace the phone cradle/eject box in diagrams below}



{#2 is the odiment tray on each side of the eject box or #11 replacement storage tray above}

[img][/center]

[wpoll]

Here's what mine looks like: -



Centre tray could be either of these two part numbers: -

11 CENTER ARMREST TRAY 1 51168215943
02 Oddments tray, telephone 1 84216924064