New Portable Navigation Plus units

[ArightDoom]

Hi Everyone,

I've been going through the forums for a couple days now and this is bugging me a bit. JimD posted the DIY instructions for the Nav mounts in august. Since then Garmin has discontinued the 800 line and it looks like BMW has moved up to the 1300 line. I want to try and get the mount from bmw and get the 1390 which is on sale at Costco this week. Can anyone confirm that the new BMW-branded units are just the 1300 line?

Also, does anyone have any pictures of an installed unit in the car? I don't actually take delivery until the end of the week, so this is all just nervous itching.

Thanks!

[JimD]

I looked at the brochure from the BMW website and I do not think these are 1300 series Garmins. The brochure says they have MP3 playback (a feature I really like) which is not in the 1300 series. You can still buy new 765t (Plus) or 885t (Pro) Garmins. I do not think BMW has changed to newer units.

I initially installed a 760, which I still use but in my SUV, and currently use a 885t. I like it but it is not as integrated as the dealer can make the Plus or Pro unit. It may be possible to do the whole physical installation yourself, I think you can get the special cradle from a BMW dealer (it seems to be listed at RealOem) but it is $90. So you would need the installation kit for about $75 and the cradle for about $90 plus the Garmin for $200-300. The bigger problem is you also need to dealer to program the car to recognize the Garmin. I've seen reports of charges of $300 for that.

My installation is not as integrated, I just wired up an accessory socket in the dash and plugged in the regular power cord with the traffic (MSN) antenna. I also ran a male to male cord (6 foot) to run the audio out of the dash and through the console to the aux port. Lastly I put a remote microphone up by the rearview mirror.

Disadvantages of my installation is more visible wires (for the distance from the mount to the hood over the gauges) and if you are listening to the radio you have to switch to the aux port to get a phone call or listen to nav instructions over the car speakers. On long trips I listen to MP3s out of the nuvi and I don't have to switch anything. The main advantage of my installation is cost. I paid a little over $200 for the nuvi plus $50-75 for the installation kit. I could have gotten by with the cheaper nuvi 360 installation kit.

You can see pictures by searching my old posts as well as those of others.

Jim

[ArightDoom]

Thanks Jim,

I was able to find a car with bluetooth/ipod integration, so I'm not as worried about phone calls/MP3's as much as looking for a clean way to mount a portable GPS. As long as it get's power, I'm OK with having my music down to hear it. My brother has that setup in his mini I think I can live with it.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll dig through your old posts.

-chris

[JimD]

Chris,

You may want to review this page from RealOem:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...01&hg=65&fg=95

On a 1 series, you can either use the metal BMW bracket like I did or you can use a plastic tray that goes where the compartment is on European units or where the iDrive goes. It seems a little scary to me to cut a big hole in the dash but I like the looks of the tray installation and it would make the nuvi lower on the dash (but further away from the driver a little).

The installation kit for the Plus/Pro gives you a bunch of wiring including a MSN direct antenna. For what you are thinking about, you don't need all those wires, just power. That is the setup of the oldest portable BMW offered which is based upon a nuvi 360. That installation kit is cheaper.

I think the attached installation instructions has the part number of the simpler kit and shows where I got power. You won't have this cradle if you don't buy the BMW unit so you have to change it some. I just wired a cigarette lighter socket I got from a part store to the same connections shown for power in these instructions and then plugged the nuvi power cord in. It is tie wrapped to a bracket on the left side of the steering column with the extra cord also tie wrapped up.


Jim

[ArightDoom]

Thanks Jim, I think that's more of what I'm thinking. Yeah, that tray looks scary. I was wondering how people were installing that, didn't realize it required hacking a hole in the dash. Plus mine's a lease, so I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be thrilled at that.

Thanks for the PDF. I'll go through and follow your DIYs for modifying that mount for the newer Nuvi units.

You're a huge help, thanks!

[JimD]

Chris,

The only thing to be careful about with these instructions is the position of the bracket. These instructions are written for the nuvi 360 which is narrower than the 765t or 885t. The instructions for the "Plus" and "Pro" say to offset the bracket 11mm towards the passengers side of the vehicle (instead of roughly flush with the opening shown for the nuvi 360). This whole area is covered by the hood over the gauges so an error is not huge but I'm sure you'd rather do it once.

Jim

[ArightDoom]

Yup! Caught that in your other threads. Once the time comes (delivery just got shifted a couple days, and then I'm not doing this till after christmas), I'll be printing out reams of those threads.

[AW128i]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, you can get just the BMW bracket and power harness and source the nav unit separately? I was planning on going with the "Plus" kit anyway, but seeing this thread I'm wondering now if I should just do something like JimD did and make my own wiring setup with the regular Nuvi plug. The integration with the vehicle is originally what I was seeking, but I'm thinking that the dealer labor will make it ridiculously expensive. As long as I can use the BMW bracket that allows for the uber-clean dash install, I'm happy.

[ArightDoom]

That is my understanding, HOWEVER: from what I've seen in Jim's other threads, not all garmins have the same mounting bracket, even within the Nuvi line. I'm sorta to the point where I'm thinking **** it, I'll just print directions. But I don't even have the car yet and this is all just foot jiggling.

[JimD]

I think you can put nearly any nuvi on the BMW bracket but the units bigger than the 760 and 885t could be a challenge. The 760 is the 4.2 inch, there are some that are 5 inch. I think they would be too tall to easily install. There is not much room under the nuvi on the BMW bracket. I even drilled a couple new holes to move the ball mount up a little so I could tilt the nuvi more down. It didn't make a big difference. I drilled the extra holes into the metal part of the BMW bracket.

The 7 and 8 series power cord plugs into the cradle. This makes removal and installation more convenient. A remote microphone also plugs into the cradle. I keep a cord in the headphone outlet going to the aux port. So I unplug that and unsnap the nuvi. The 2 series power cord plugs directly into the GPS. I don't think I would like that as well but it should work fine. I think the headphone to aux port cord looks better with a right angle plug. I couldn't find a cord that way so I bought a right angle plug and modified a cord.

The only thing you have to do is to trim some extra projections off the ball mount projection that is on the BMW bracket. This is a couple minutes with a pocket knife. You can just look at the ball of the Garmin mount, the one from BMW, and make the BMW one look like the Garmin one. Then you snap the cradle that will come with your nuvi onto the BMW mount. It is very simple.

The wiring takes a little more time but it isn't bad. Working slowly and carefully this shouldn't take more than a Saturday morning. Most of the time is snapping trim pieces off and unscrewing the gauges and then the hood over the gauges. The gauges are two screws (torx of course) and the hood is 4 screws.

I also spent a bunch of time trimming material slowly off the bottom corner of the hood for the wires. The instructions tell you how much to trim but I wanted to try less. I should have just followed the directions. I ended up trimming as much. It doesn't show anyway.

Jim