The Next Mod - Invision Headrests

[jsears]

So, I have owned my X5 4.8is for about 3 months now and in that time I have accomplished the following mods:

Intravee, Hardware V1, Dinan CAI, TB, Strut Tower Brace, Stage 3 Software, and Pedals.

With all of the "performance" mods pretty much installed I figured it was time to focus on the interior a little bit. In steps Captain Acedeucy (Law) to the rescue. Since he is our resident expert I gave him a call to see how easy the installation would be and he told me it would be a breeze. We also discussed where I can purchase the monitors from his list of vendors. Law is up to date on what is going on through all of his re-sellers, so if you are searching for one I would give him a call and see what he knows is going on out there.

I had heard before that headrest monitors were not compatible with comfort seats, but Law soon put that worry to rest. He really knows his merchandise and when you get on the phone with him its been like you have been friends for years.

So, I ordered me up a set of Invision RevII headrest, and they were being shipping out via UPS (side note: I really hate UPS but that is another story).

Here are my impressions of the install. You need to give the stock headrest a good whack to get it to dislodge from the actuator, it my feel like you broke something but it is fine. The rear seat panels are not plastic, but they are a wood/cardboard type material. They bend really easy, I bent both of mine removing them and they are even more difficult to put back together. But all of that is BMW's fault, not Invision's. Their install is straight forward, really easy and color coded. Mine is just using the rear cigarette adapter for now, until it goes into the dealer for its next service and then I will have them wire it to a permanent install.

Here are some pictures of the finished product:






Overall Impressions:

Lawrence and his customer service are outstanding. I don't think I have ever been treated to kindly or wonderful ever buying a product. He also stands behind his product 110%.

Some things to note for potential buyers is that these are not your stock comfort seat headrests with monitors in them, they are replacement headrests and are not shaped like the stock ones. However, the product works as advertised.

I had received the security covers first and I felt that they did not match the leather of my seats. I gave Lawrence a call and he assured me that the actual headrest would be a better match, since they get their leather from BMW AG.

When I opened up the box with the headrests they looks just like the security covers to me and did not match. After the install I feel better about the headrest matching the leather of the rest of the car. But to me it is not an exact match, probably an 8.5 or 9.0 out of 10 in match quality. It bugs me knowing that it is not a perfect match. But I figured the cars leather has 38k miles on it, and the is leather from a whole different roll of leather. So you can't control everything.

Captain Acedeucy add me to the list of another satisfied customer.