BMW Navigation Install

[TW]Fox;21419559 said:
I guess part of the reason I am so happy with it is my expectations were about as low as you can get. I bought it expecting to send it back.
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Reading that, I can't help wondering if you'll feel different toward it in 6 months time?
 
Well, your a man of high expectations I think, it'll be interesting to see if its still working and / or you've had any issues with it, things that I'd brush off seem to erk you - the music interface screen for example - and fair enough to you for that, each to his own! that you had low expectations in ther first place makes me wonder what time, experience of using it day in, day out and the loss of the novelty value may do...?

It'll be interesting to see how you like it....

You said in your OP you wanted thoughts , it was just that. :)
 
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Lucero said:
So, OOI, how does the E60 PDC work whereby the screen stays on until you drive forwards over 15mph and both front and rear PDCs are active?
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Because it's designed that way from the ground up. The E60 visual PDC function is an integrated extension of the stock PDC functionality.

E39: Engage reverse. Car flags up that it is in reverse. PDC engages due to receipt of this information. This turns on the light on the PDC button and turns the sensors on. Light and sensors remain on until either:

a) The car exceeeds a certain speed
b) The PDC button is pressed

The E60 works in exactly the same way only with the addition of the visual PDC.

Because my unit is aftermarket, uses the same reverse signal from the IBUS to put itself into PDC mode but it uses the same reverse on/off state in order to exit PDC mode. The reason why it does this is because the unit was originally designed for the E46 3 Series which is not fitted with front PDC and therefore works perfectly using this method. They presumably couldn't be arsed/decided it wasn't worth the faff/didn't even think about redesigning this aspect just to suit E39 owners, who I'd imagine are quite a small proportion of total sales.
 
[TW]Fox;21421664 said:
He is totally correct in his explanation of how the factory PDC works. Reverse engages it, driving over 15mph turns it off.

As putting the car into reverse will tell the bus the car is in reverse its this information the Nv unit uses to change mode and this is why it changes back when you change out of reverse.
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Sorry, I've made a bit of a hash of mixing up my pdcs/headunits.

I was thinking more of what activates the screen on the factory nav rather than the pdc system itself, i was going to ask the question posed by Lucero.

But I don't need to now as everything i wanted to know has been answered.
 
Wait a second you mean that you didn't buy the correct specification after your 20 years of searching for the 'perfect car' ?!

A personal choice no doubt, but I do not appreciate the Lexus-ified wood-effect and plastic interior on any cars.

The screen does improve the otherwise dull centre console of cars of this age (my father's 320dS is equally dull) but it does look slightly out of place , much like the double DIN Sat-Nav upgrades available in my old old MR2.

I must otherwise commend you on wiring everything yourself, especially the PDC as I know that those can be downright pigs to work with!
 
f00f1ght0r said:
Wait a second you mean that you didn't buy the correct specification after your 20 years of searching for the 'perfect car' ?!
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I bought it when I was a Uni student, I was happy enough to be buying a 4 year old 5 Series in such circumstances and understandably chose to focus on condition over outright specification. This was back when most E39 Sport's were big money and a car with navigation was quite literally £2000 more expensive and, given it was a £4k option when the car was new, rare. Rarer still to find a manual Sport *with* navigation.

The car I chose had almost everything I wanted (the standard spec of the E39 is generous for the time) and was in fantastic condition, with a single private owner from new and still had BMW warranty. I wasn't going to turn it down because it had no Satnav. That would have been foolish in the extreme.
 
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I can just bet you loved the way you looked in it in those days with a fake "sigh" whenever anyone asked how you could afford such a car! :D
 
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How are you getting on with this now, Fox?

I have absolutely no intention of buying one of these units yet due to the prohibitively high cost but just looking on eBay I did notice theD3MMI. It's considerably cheaper than the Dynavin units although it is less OEM looking. Did you look into these at all before you purchased yours?
 
I did look into these, yes. There are a bunch of guys in the States who have been importing them. They seem much less polished than the unit I went for though functionality wise they are very similar. I wasn't looking for the cheapest solution and it was very important that it looked right so I decided against them.

Mine was only £100 more than that, though.

As for mine - getting on really well. Love it. The novelty of playing around with it has worn off now so it simply gets used.. well, as a normal navigation/audio device for which its absolutely great. Mapping is great, used it for a couple of reasonably long trips now and I'm wondering how I ever put up with a Tomtom stuck to the dash. Really happy. My daily routine is get in car, turn key, seatbelt on, hit 'nav' as I pull away and bingo. Really pleased.
 
It has never crashed on me - ever. It is totally stable. It was absolutely brilliant on my tour of Europe and never put a foot wrong.

You can't run Android on it as well - you either have a unit with a Windows backend or an Android backend - you chose when you buy it and there is no way of changing between them once you've selected your unit. I gave Android a lot of consideration but discounted it in the end as I wanted a car audio and nav system rather than a computer and IMHO the Windows version is better for this.
 
[TW]Fox;22854649 said:
It has never crashed on me - ever. It is totally stable. It was absolutely brilliant on my tour of Europe and never put a foot wrong.

You can't run Android on it as well - you either have a unit with a Windows backend or an Android backend - you chose when you buy it and there is no way of changing between them once you've selected your unit. I gave Android a lot of consideration but discounted it in the end as I wanted a car audio and nav system rather than a computer and IMHO the Windows version is better for this.
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I see, I have had experience of routing from mediocre nav systems (sygic) and it wasn't pleasant.

Can you install other nav software on it if it's no good?
 
jamoor said:
I see, I have had experience of routing from mediocre nav systems (sygic) and it wasn't pleasant.

Can you install other nav software on it if it's no good?
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You can install any Nav system that runs on Windows CE. I use Igo Primo 2.0 and its great.
 
After a full week with the touring I was thinking of this but for the wife's car I can't warrant the cost, also showed her this thread she liked the appearance but is quite happy with standard 7 disc and bluetooth the Touring already has, if it were mine I'd like multiple phone connections as the BMW system only stores one, a sat nav and some MP3s but we have a Garmin that's easy and simple for her to use once a month and she's not into MP3s, does the standard professional cd in the dash read MP3s?
 
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