In lieu of readable gauges...

[workingonit]

Originally Posted by workingonit

...
I thought I had made enough progress to hold me over until I could get the Resler Ibus adapter & the Ibus app, tap into the Ibus wire under the console (at connector X4545),
Attachment 81753
and use my 8" tablet to display the data needed....

After wrecking my back fixing the passenger airbag light problem, which required me to wedge myself in the backseat, almost upside-down, I followed that with checking and topping up all the tires on our 5 vehicles and my 2 trailers (32 tires total...the HHR Panel has 2 spares); I figured I couldn't hurt much worse, so I decided to finally disassemble the center console, to get to the I-bus wire I've bee seeking.

The side-panel access to connector X4545 would've require that I remove the driver's seat, which I didn't want to do (possibly creating more problems). So I tried removing the center console storage box that sits just over the connector. After removing eight screws that had been cross-threaded and glued in place, I still couldn't budge the console box shell (the CD holder & storage cubby were already removed).

I had previously seen where the pre-wiring for the mobile phone comes into the top of the armrest, but once I pried out the (glued-in) phone cradle, I still couldn't get to the extension cable from X4545 (I had previously found the BMW P/N tag on it, but I can't find it now). So I took off the bottom plastic plate, under the top of the armrest, where I finally could touch the 18-pin phone cradle connector/extension? (from X4545), which was tie-wrapped to the antenna cable.


I found a pin-out for that connector on the E-46 website, but that one shows 17 wires in an 18-pin connector. I'm sure there are only 16 wires in mine, but I'll look again tomorrow, and recount. And, there might be a different number of wires considering the different models.