My 2005 X5 Aftermarket Radio Install Thread

[Crowz]

Originally Posted by yes_its_neil

It's 10 years too late for Billy to enjoy any royalties

That's never stopped the music industry

[Crowz]

Ok I managed to get the wires hid under the carpet that run from the front to the back at least to the back of the back seats. I still have to run them under the side section from the back seat to the hatch area. Rain, rain and more rain with them showing bad thunderstorms tonight. So it will be Saturday at this rate before I get done.

[Crowz]

I did shoot a short vid of the Seicane navigation in action. Nothing fancy and super short but shows what it looks like.

I still haven't removed the protective film from the screen yet since I still have to remove the head unit to move the gps antenna a bit before I am done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InAevO3YxoI

[Crowz]

Got a break in the weather and finished the install for the radio itself. I will upload more pics tonight.

The backup camera I bought does not fit and I have run into this before and Im just too old to do another carving out job on the handle to hold it. So Im going to try something a bit different and will post pics when I get that done or fail

Of course I didn't realize the backup camera wasn't going to work till I took all the trim off the rear hatch and all

[Crowz]

Well it seems today has been "one of those days".

I finished up the basic install part and couldn't find center post and cap for the spare tire. I looked everywhere.

Of course I had put EVERYTHING back together when I realized I couldn't find it. So I had to take the spare tire, brace and cover off from around the battery in case it fell down in there.

Nope.

So after looking around I decided to put everything back together and look for it later.

I get everything put back together again except the spare tire bolt and tested the system and it played but the steering wheel controls wouldn't work. I had pulled the factory nav computer and the cd changer out too during this so I reinstalled both of them and still no steering wheel controls. Crap.

So I pulled the spare tire out AGAIN along with the brace and the cover and sure enough the can bus adapter had fallen off the cable during the install. So after plugging it back in I taped the crap out of it so it cant come off again and put everything back in. This time I put the deck lid back in place and the rubber mat I have for the cargo area. So now I'm moving my electric cooler back into the cargo area and my tools and my socket set. When I reach for the last thing "the large tool bag" guess what is under the tool bag laying on the seat of the car.....




THE SPARE TIRE HOLD DOWN..... Grrrrr.....

So now I had to take everything back out again. I guess it was on the tool bag and it fell off onto the seat and got covered which was probably when I pulled the cables thru the middle for testing.

Anyways its all back together. I think burned out an led tailgate light as it was blinking after being on so long. The fun never ends.

[pearlpower]

I ordered this one for the backup. Arriving tomorrow, can always return it if I do not like it.
I need another crossover for the subs, but otherwise my system is great. I might tape the canbus like you did, did not cross my mind as it worked out of the box.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Crowz]

That's similar to the one I bought and it wont fit in my 2005 x5. Let me know if it fits yours.

[blakamin]

So if you have a factory camera, it won't work with this unit???

[Crowz]

Its not the radio its the X5.

So far I have bought several of the tag light with the backup camera made onto it. They fit e39 cars and some other bmw's but so far any bmw that has a removable piece that the tag lights and trunk/hatch opening button built into it wont work with them. Basically the tag light isn't removable. Its made into the piece. You can remove the lens but the guts are in the lip piece itself so there isn't enough room for these all in one replacement camera/lens to fit.

In the past I ground the camera housing down to fit inside but its just to time consuming to do again.

So I'm going to mount a different kind of camera on mine to get around the problem.

If you have a camera on your x5 already the radio will work with it fine. The radio will work with any backup camera.

Its this particular camera I cant mount to my x5 that I'm referring to and not the radio.

[Crowz]

Hopefully this will explain the problem better. These pics are from when I installed one of these cameras on my 323i.

This is how much destruction was required to put it in that housing.