New to the forum and to working on BMWs. I've done all my wrenching on American cars so I need some help here.
Finally got around to trying to replace the stock AM/FM/Cassette deck in my '99 328i sedan with a Business CD Player I bought on eBay. While it doesn't look too complicated, before I start pulling apart the dash I thought I should ask someone who's done it before how to approach it.
I can see that the CD player has what looks like screw holes on the two tabs that extend from the faceplate. I assume these simply bolt up under the plastic trim. So is the first step to pull the trim and then somehow pull out the existing deck? Once its out is it as simple as reattaching the connections on the rear of the deck to the new one? Is there any special tools required other than a screw driver?
Well after 24 hours of no responses I finally gave up an dug into the dash myself. I figured it out and everything is in and working fine. But as for the helpfulness of forum, this less than a great first experience
Tphil,
First, I want to apologize for not getting to your question sooner. I saw your post the other day and was going to do some diggin' into it, and I forgot to get back into here and post. Don't take my forgetfulness for the general happenings in this forum. I am kinda the "go-to" guy on car audio 'round these parts, and it totally slipped my mind. Our 3-series section is one of the best out there. Many knowledgable people there. They usually dont check down in the audio section, 'cuz I am usually on top of things. I slipped on yours, again I apologize.
I never had any dealings with the business CD radio, I can't help you there. Most bimmer radios are held in by a little 5-point star-like screw. They are brass so they strip out easy. As long as your plugs are the same (and they should be), it'll be a snap. They make a 5-star tool to back out the two screws. If you are careful, a 2 or 2.5mm (I forget which) allen will work as long as the screws arent REALLY tight, but like I said, thye strip out easily.
It sounds like you got it going, I am glad there. Check out our lounge, that's where the fun and craziness happens. Like I said the 3-series section for your car is one of the best. Enjoy your stay here.
Bill
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
Thanks for the heads up and the follow up reply. I'll make sure to direct future posts to the 3-series section now that I know. In case it's helpful to anyone else I did find 2 pretty good tutorials (with pics) on how to uninstall the existing radio in a 1999-2002 3-series. Once it was out I just reversed the instructions to install the Business CD player. It was really straight forward.
So the Business CD player is installed and almost everything is working as expected, except one thing. For some reason the AM tuner won't let me select channel by channel, instead it jumps ahead in increments of 9. An example I want to select 8.60 AM, but when I tune the AM dial it only stops on 8.55 or 8.64 (basically not allowing me to select the station). It's consistently jumping ahead in increments of 9 - I can get close to a few stations I want and since they have strong signals I can listen to a fuzzy neighbor station, but for others I am SOL.
Does anyone out there know what might be causing this? Is there an adjustment somewhere that can be made to correct it? Is there some kind of adapter that I missed when installing it?
I was a used unit I bought on eBay and it does have a 30 day warranty so I may be covered if the unit is defective, but then I'm stuck with additional shipping costs to swap it out with the vendor.
It seems there is a trick like holding the manual button for a bit, and it gives you an option to change the tuning from Euro to US. Euro tunes at 9khz steps. I am not sure if there is any other option to change the rate at which the AM tunes. It may even be separate from AM to FM, not really sure on that.
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
It seems there is a trick like holding the manual button for a bit, and it gives you an option to change the tuning from Euro to US. Euro tunes at 9khz steps. I am not sure if there is any other option to change the rate at which the AM tunes. It may even be separate from AM to FM, not really sure on that.
Sounds promising...tried holding down the manual button but all I got was a screen with what looked like a serial number. Didn't get an option to change from Euro to US. Any other places I can look to get more specific instructions to make the change?
It seems there is a trick like holding the manual button for a bit, and it gives you an option to change the tuning from Euro to US. Euro tunes at 9khz steps. I am not sure if there is any other option to change the rate at which the AM tunes. It may even be separate from AM to FM, not really sure on that.
Well, good news I think i found a site that explains how it works. Apprently there is a programmable mode you can access by holding down the "m" for 10 seconds. I controls several different settings (the site details what they are) and allows you to change them. The one I need ot adjust is the "Area" setting which can be changed to different parts of the world (Europe, USA, Japan, etc.).
Thanks again for all your help...I'll let you know if it works.
So to close this out...I just made the programming changes to flip the AM tuning from European to USA. Other than having to reset all my presets (it clears them whenever you go into programming) everything is working exactly as hoped. Thanks for all your help!
You did the leg work here, I'll keep this thread noted for anyone else that comes in. That stuff is nice to know. Come check out our lounge area. All sorts of craziness that happens in there. A great bunch of peoples.
Bill
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
Hey guys, new to the forum here, hope I'm posting this in the right spot...
I've got an e32 that i'm trying to pull the radio out in, and, silly as this may sound, I'm having problems getting the power plug out of the back of it. I've got the radio itself pulled out, however I can't seem to be able to remove the main strand of wires out of the back (without fearing i'll break it) So, if someone's done this before, could they give me a quick pointer on how to remove that black plastic bunch of wires? I've gotten as far as lifting the little bar up, but past that I'd love some help!
Thanks,
Mini
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