My 2005 X5 Aftermarket Radio Install Thread

[tttomttt]

Hello Everyone,
Fairly new to the forum and I want to say thanks for all the info gained from this place. I have had a 03 330xi since 2010 and absolutely love that car. When it came time to replace my wife's ML320 I immediately tried to find a decent X5. I have since purchased an 05 x5 with 85000 miles and we absolutely love it. After some of the usual maintenance items such as cooling system overhaul, valve cover gasket, and ofhg I have moved onto installing the pioneer Avic 7200 head unit that was in her ML into the X5. It is non dsp and the installation was essentially a piece of cake. The only issue I am having is locating the VSS wire. I have read during the extensive research I have done that it may perhaps be a BRN/RD wire behind the instrument gauge cluster. Is this in fact correct? Was tapping into this wire needed for your seicane unit? I would hate to have to route a wire to the amplifier to pick up the VSS wire when my entire installation was confined to the dash.
I thank all in advance if someone has this information to pass along.
Tom

[mrz85]

hello, sorry for my english.
i have e53 2003 with 16:9 navi, mb54 radio module in the trunk.

I installed Erisin ES3493B unit.

https://www.erisin.com/bmw-e39-e53-c...tion_p963.html

everything works perfect except the FM radio. very bad radio reception.
I changed 2 antenna amplifiers, one in the back side window



another in the rear window. nothing changed. when I connect another antenna, everything is ok.

i think that my oem FM amplifier is not activating, but +12 is coming to the amplifier. there is 1 socket on amplifier (3rd frome the left). but 2 wires are going into it. 1 is blue (ANT amp), 2nd the ibus wire.
9 and 13 pins



i have tried many antenna boosters with +12 wire connected to the blue wire (amp remonte)


still nothing.

i even tried to connect the unit directly in the trunk, without main cable and antenna extension.

I'm waiting for another adapter. but I think it does not help.


Who else has the same problem?

Thanks

[Crowz]

Originally Posted by tttomttt

Hello Everyone,
Fairly new to the forum and I want to say thanks for all the info gained from this place. I have had a 03 330xi since 2010 and absolutely love that car. When it came time to replace my wife's ML320 I immediately tried to find a decent X5. I have since purchased an 05 x5 with 85000 miles and we absolutely love it. After some of the usual maintenance items such as cooling system overhaul, valve cover gasket, and ofhg I have moved onto installing the pioneer Avic 7200 head unit that was in her ML into the X5. It is non dsp and the installation was essentially a piece of cake. The only issue I am having is locating the VSS wire. I have read during the extensive research I have done that it may perhaps be a BRN/RD wire behind the instrument gauge cluster. Is this in fact correct? Was tapping into this wire needed for your seicane unit? I would hate to have to route a wire to the amplifier to pick up the VSS wire when my entire installation was confined to the dash.
I thank all in advance if someone has this information to pass along.
Tom

As far as I know X5 bmw's don't have a wire you can tap like that. The speed is calculated from the abs sensor by the computer and then put out as data on the bus. Not as a separate wire.

[Crowz]

Originally Posted by mrz85

hello, sorry for my english.
i have e53 2003 with 16:9 navi, mb54 radio module in the trunk.

I installed Erisin ES3493B unit.

https://www.erisin.com/bmw-e39-e53-c...tion_p963.html

everything works perfect except the FM radio. very bad radio reception.
I changed 2 antenna amplifiers, one in the back side window



another in the rear window. nothing changed. when I connect another antenna, everything is ok.

i think that my oem FM amplifier is not activating, but +12 is coming to the amplifier. there is 1 socket on amplifier (3rd frome the left). but 2 wires are going into it. 1 is blue (ANT amp), 2nd the ibus wire.
9 and 13 pins



i have tried many antenna boosters with +12 wire connected to the blue wire (amp remonte)


still nothing.

i even tried to connect the unit directly in the trunk, without main cable and antenna extension.

I'm waiting for another adapter. but I think it does not help.


Who else has the same problem?

Thanks

All of the early models of the aftermarket radios had pretty bad reception fm wise. That was one of the things I was impressed with on the Seicane I went with since it has great radio reception.

The built in fm amplifier does go bad but I doubt it would just from you changing radios. So if it was working ok when you did the swap then I imagine its the radio itself. The built in fm radio antenna is designed to work with the factory radio and doesn't have a very good reputation for working with anything aftermarket from my experience. Again that's why I was impressed and surprised the Seicane worked so well with it.

If the amplifier has power I cant think of anything else to try other than swapping the fm amplifier out but again that seems like a longshot if it worked good before the swap.

[bcredliner]

Believe it or not I read every post again yesterday.

What I didn't find was a post of the location and color of each wire in the white connector that goes into the back of the navigation screen. There are 12 slots. Does anyone know the number of the connection or can post that information?

Wire colors:

Green/red
brown/red
A clear wire with a black wire attached by white wrap. They go in separate slots
A clear wire with a black wire attached by a black wrap. They go in separate slots
A clear wire with a black wire attached by a red wrop. The go in separate slots.
Black

A total of 9 wires to go for the 12 slots.

[Crowz]

One sec looking it up.

[Crowz]

This shows the wires. The white plug is connector 18802.

[Crowz]

Here is the color translations.

[bcredliner]

Do you know if it matters which color of the shielded wires wrapped in black, red or white are spiced to the 3 black wires of the BMW harness? The are no red, black or white wraps on the harness wires. It seems logical to me the wraps would all be the same color if it made no difference?

[Crowz]

Hmm ok this makes no sense. Looking at the way they have it they are putting + and - together.