I had a MKIV radio nav that Brian recoded for me with Navcoder. Works fine.

hello again. The cause is confirmed. The MK4 unit was previously linked to a monochrome screen as the seller sold me. Pity he didn't mention it in his listing.....

I guess that leaves me with three options

1/ get navcoder, buy an ibus connector some cables and go to evening computing classes (at 52 I am sure sure I can do this...)

2/ get somebody smarter to perform the job for me..

3/ found a dealer bright enough to know / be willing to do that and not asking atronomical money for his expertise....

Incidentally I suppose I also have to go to the dealer to recode my OBD in the dash which after taking the GPS fuse out is now set in german rather than french (very nice but not too practical...

Thank you anyway for such a great support and advice. I realize that I should have done my homework before and buy the right MK4 for my car.

Wingburger

In Europe the recoding can easily be done by the dealer to change radio nav to color nav. The dealers in the US don't/won't do it, they are dumb. The dealer procedure has been posted on this board a couple of years ago by "appy" I think it was. Do a search. The easiest way is to use Jochen's navcoder which costs 20 euros for SW I think and then you need the interface which you get from Resler in Germany for ca 40 euros or you build your own interface from the circuit in this forum for about 10 euros in parts. Edwin up in Holland probably could do it for you if you ever go there, or send him your MKIV to code. He is on the bimmerboard.com e38 forum and also the bimmerboard NL forum. Good luck.

I highly recommend NavCoder. It is easier, and it has a higher probability of success than tanking it to a dealer.

__________________
SOLD
2000 E38 750iL Highline Edition, Upgraded with the lastest 2006 X5 Electronics
MKIV Navigation, 16:9 Display, Bluetooth, TV/Video with Backup Camera, Sirius, and Aux Input

^ +1

My local (only) dealer won't even contemplate anything that isn't 100% cosher BMW approved and has a path on their coding computer. I tried in vain to get them to retrofit code Voice Recognition on my Bluetooth ULF, but they claimed that it was impossible without £500 hardware + fitting costs, even though it had been proven that it could be retrofit coded.

In the end I bought Navcoder and an i-bus interface and did it in 30 seconds flat.

The hardest part will be attaching into the i-bus ... easiest way is to use the CD Changer 3-pin connector but in the X3 with a changer fitted, it's a challenge even getting to the bottom of the CD changer, so I just poked a wire into the back of the Nav connector.

When you get your i-bus interface and Navcoder, post for advice and you will no doubt get a step by step hand-hold in how to fix the problem.

Think the biggest issue is that you should not have paid the price for a colour Mk4 if you only received a mono Mk4 and I'd certainly go back to the seller about this. He probably knew there was much less of a market for mono Mk4's so 'forgot' to declare it!

What a great line! I must add it to the Readme file :-)

a BIG THANK to you all guys !

I can see this site is really up to his reputation !
Thanks to the FAQ and the various topics I have been able to do the upgrade from 4:3 to 16:9 screen and also from sport steering wheel to M3. In both cases dealers were telling me this is not possible to do, just as they advised not to change the steptronic direction as shown in a thread here...

I think the french dealers are at least as hopeless as the US ones !
I will first try them on the coding but I am nearly sure this is a dead end.

I will also try to see if your dutch contact is willing to do the job for me (against payment of course).

If none of these work I will have ot take a plunge, buy the software and ibus interface and try to find a clever guy around here knowing something about computers ...

Last but not least I will contact my german seller on ebay to tell him that he should really do something as I paid 400 + euros for something I cannot use in my car... I don't mean he did it knowingly, but still in his listing he was saying that it could be used with the 16:9 bormonitor with is false.
Will let u know what comes next.


Wingburger

He wasn't wrong.

You can use the Mk4 with the 16:9 monitor, just change the software from mono to colour and it'll work.

Easy to do with NavCoder - if you can figure out how to write questions and read answers in BMW forums, you are skilled enough to use NavCoder :-)

you re too kind KiwiJochen. Even dealing with a RAR files seems a big challenge to my skills ! I suppose the idea is to burn it onto a CD or can I just download it on my HD and use it as is ?

sorry to be a pain......