Finished! Custom navigation installed in 2006 X3

Here's a little project that I just completed for my mother's 2006 X3. She'd been asking for Nav for a while, and I wanted to do something nice...

First off, thanks to Jim, Derek and the guys at Sound-in-Motion in Allston, MA (http://www.sound-in-motion.com/) who did the actual work... I just came up with the concept. I've worked with them in the past on a few projects, and Derek had done some amazing fabrication work for me on my e46 with a custom Alpine touchscreen: http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=402923.

Anyhow, I found this picture on a 1 series forum a while ago and it inspired me:


To fill the gaping hole in the X3's dash, I ordered a super-sized Garmin Street Pilot 7200 from Amazon for $299. It has an $800 MSRP, but the model is about 2-3 years old and can be had for cheap. Its still the only 7" screen Garmin offers (with video / reverse camera inputs). BTW, if you register this unit with Garmin, you get free access to the software updates and 2009 maps for the first 30 days. I updated the software and installed the 2009 maps before I did anything... BTW, I didn't have them do the reverse camera--although I imagine at some point I'll probably have it added...
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=6389


After buying the Nav unit, the first thing I did, was locate a discontinued part. BMW OEM part # 51453401824 is a Euro only blanking cover that goes on the dash where the flip-up OEM Nav unit would go... At some point, BMW decided to give all cars that came without Nav the storage bin instead of this blanking plate, and if you check realoem you'll find this blanking plate has been superseded by the storage tray:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...51&fg=30&hl=18

I ordered a blanking tray from Tischer BMW, and was told it could take 4-6 weeks to come in... Being impatient, I tried to locate a new one... Luckily I found a used one from member Supercourse, who shipped it to me for cheap money...

Here is the blanking panel. It had some grayish rubberized paint on it. My shop decided to remove it and paint it to better match the interior. Here it is as it came from the factory:


And here is how they chose to modify it to fit:







And now some installed pics of the final result.

dang that is clean...nice work

Looks great, Steve!

Originally Posted by Jason@Tischer

Looks great, Steve!

Thanks Jason! I lucked out since that bracket's been discontinued...

OK... So I decided this system really need a reverse camera since I already had the giant screen...

Grabbed an Eclipse BEC106 reverse camera off Amazon for $175... Yes, I know there are cheaper cameras out there, but very few of the quality of the Eclipse...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...F8&me=&seller=

I then wired it to the Street Pilot 7200, which has built in controls for a reverse camera... My shop then cutout a section of the plastic trim piece and attached it here. The camera automatically kicks on when the car is placed in reverse...

great job! looks good.

damn. awesome, five stars.

thanks! doing a reverse camera soon in my e46 also...

Very nice