BMW E46 Mk4 Montior swap
 

Hi

Id like to swap my 16:9 navigation monitor to a CD version (mine is tape)

Can somebody please tell me, is this a straight swap with no coding or other setup required?

I assume all settings and preferences are stored in the actual Nav computer, radio tuner and TV modules?

Will the computer display (MPG) etc all work afterwords?

Thanks

I believe that this is a straight swap in the E46. You are correct that all the other devices store and do the stuff; the screen is just a dumb display, like a computer module. The radio module will automatically detect that it has a single-disk CD player instead of the tape player and change its behavior accordingly.

Thanks, Appreciated.

Can anybody tell me, is the firmware version of the Nav etc also held in the DVD module in the boot? Im hoping changing the screen will have no effect on the versions etc.

Yes, the nav OS is loaded in the nav computer. The screen is just a dumb display with no major function. It is just buttons and display-- the nav computer is the brains of the whole A/V system.

Ok so I swapped the monitor, so for anybody wanting to know, it was a simple straight swap, everything just worked exactly as it was before, radio settings, Nav settings, everything.

I am having an issue with the CD player version that I just bought on ebay however. This is a little off topic I know, but I hoped somebody might have some experience of this...

I swapped the cassette monitor for the CD version as I said, but although the unit appears to load and play a CD OK, it is doing wiered things. The best I can do to narrow it down is that if I use the < or > buttons to select a track, that track will stop abrubptly after around 10 secondss, and there is just silence as if the unit has frozen until I select another mode, but if I use the steering wheel controls to skip it doesnt.

I cant really explain this, but it does it most times i use the controls on the head unit.

Anybody else experienced this ?

Thanks

This is good to know...i'm thinking of doing the same thing cause i'd like to get an AUX input added....my current 16:9 tape doesn't have one...and the dealer can't confirm if one will work with my current deck.

What year is your car? It is possible that you have an older radio module that does not fully support the in-dash CD player. That is the only thing I can think of. If that is the case, then you could try a radio module upgrade to see if that fixes it.

So everything else works fine? The cd changer and the mk3 nav still works after the headunit upgrade? i'm thinking i will do this too if all those other things work, i mainly want a newer deck for the purpose of adding an aux input. but still want the cd changer to work atleast..the nav i could care less for

Hmmm, thanks. Its a 2002. When you say "upgrade", do you mean swap for a new one, or is there a soft upgrade?

I actually have the Mk4 Nav in mine (DVD). I swapped a casette 16:9 for a CD 16:9 and everything worked for me, it was exactly as it was, the screen is just "dumb". The only difference is I now have a CD player (with the little glitch mentioned above)

A radio upgrade would be a swap to a new one. However, a 2002 radio is pretty new in the grand scheme of things, and I would have expected it to support an in-dash CD player. This one is officially a mystery to me. It might still be worth a radio upgrade and then sell yours on something like eBay. The net cost would not be that much.

I have to confess I don't know how the CD and tape work. Are the CD controls internal to the monitor, or does the track advance button press go to the BM24/BM54 over iBus, then back to the monitor from the BM24/BM54 as a command to activate the transport?

Perhaps somebody could tell me, will the 16:9 monitor that I have removed from my E46 fit into an X5? I have somebody who wants to buy it, but I dont know if the screen is the same part or not?

No, it will not.

X5 screen is totally different with a differnt angle LCD and all.

E46 screen only fits E46, same with E39.

It's all I-Bus.

The CD player and monitor/buttons are both independent components connected to the I-Bus. The track change buttons send instructions to the radio module over the I-Bus. The radio interprets them based on context and then sends commands over the I-Bus back to the cd player. The monitornand cd player are more-or-less electrically independent, but happen to physically co-located in a common housing.