[Magwich]

Recently purchased a rear view camera kit from BimmerTech. I did so with much trepidation but am very happy I did so. I consider myself handy but I have no training in auto repair at all. I have disassembled the consoles on several cars in the past and found the BMW front console area to be one of the more friendly consoles I have ever worked on. The rear view camera unit works as described, has a good quality picture and gives good images day and night (the turning lines also appear to work properly). The only issue I had was that there really is no comprehensive set of instructions that comes with the unit and you are left to your own devices to figure things out. There are some pages from the BMW manual for general disassembly of various parts of the car, and a schematic for wiring, but that’s about it. This project is not for the faint of heart but it is a very doable. The project will take several hours. The contact at BimmerTech is Patryk and he was excellent to deal with. He was very prompt in his replies and was able to walk me through all the issues that I had with this install. In fact on the day that I did most of this we exchanged emails on several occasions and I was amazed at his promptness. Some of the issues I had with installation were based on ill-founded concerns and misunderstandings on my part. I have attached a guide for those of you who might consider doing this. I did not include pics of each step as some of the BMW manual pics that come with the kit are adequate.


Rear View Camera Install Guide

Please note that this is all from memory. I did take some pictures but did not take notes as I went and therefore I cannot vouch for 100% accuracy.


Starting with the camera:

*Open hatch
*Remove uppermost panel above the rear window (pops off easily)
*Remove side panels from both sides (very easy to pop off)
*Remove larger bottom panel
This requires first removing two screws (torx, T25) inside handle recess areas
Then gently pop off back starting on left side
Careful as you get it off on right as there is a wire attached to tailgate buttons
I found it easier to work on this part by having tailgate only partially open
Remove the wire connector to buttons
*Turn your attention to the handle (see pic)
*Working from the inside you can press the plastic locking tabs in and as you are doing this push gently down on the handle piece to keep tabs from reengaging and work your way around to get all of them. (note that be doing this from the inside you will not damage or scratch the hatch which you might do from the outside and you don’t need to brake the tabs like it says in the BMW manual).
*From the outside of vehicle you can then detach the hatch actuator assembly by using a screwdriver to free up the plastic nubs holding it in place. I had to remove my license plate to get the piece to come completely out.
*Now attach the new handle with camera to the actuator assembly and push back into place from the outside of the vehicle.


Wire extension that connects camera wire to front of car:


*With hatch open, choose a side to run the wire, I chose the left
*Disengage the rubber flexible hose at the top of the rear opening that holds wires going from hatch to car (see pic)
*Remove the pop off rear panel from the left side of the trunk area.
*Gently partially disconnect part of the upper panel on left side of back hatch opening so at to be able to get your hand to the other end of rubber tube (see pic)
*Either get a “fishing” cable from an electronics store or make your own. I used a thick piece of malleable aluminum wire that worked ok but it was a bit laborious. You need to get the fishing device down the tube, attach the end of the connector cable to it and gently pull it up through the hose.
*Now use fishing device again on the far left side of the hatch to get the connector cable down the side of the hatch (see pic). This is much easier than the rubber tube.
*Connect the extension cable to the camera cable and then secure the connection somehow. I used Gorilla Duct tape.
*You need to decide now if you want the static lines on your back up picture or not, because if you don’t, you need to cut the wire loop that is on the end of the camera cable. If you don’t do it now, it will be tedious to do it later. I didn’t cut the loop.
*Pull the slack so that the camera wire gets pulled up into the side of the hatch and then pull the rest of the slack through the rubber tube so that all the wire is now down in the left back side of the car behind the pop off panel.
*Don’t forget to reengage the rubber tube into the frame
*Please note that there really is very little extra length to the connecting cable. I pulled all the slack out of the back and there was just enough cable to get up to the front in the way that I wired it (within a few inches).
*You must now decide on how to get your wire up to the dash. I chose the following:
*Gently pull up on the panel in the trunk area that is directly in front of the panel that you popped off. Run wire over toward the right edge (on the trunk floor) and then up toward the seat. You will have to pull the panel up off the floor to do this. You could probably fish this part but I didn’t try to do that.
*Once the wire is up around the front of the panel you next have to get it through the seat.
*I worked it as far to the left as possible and with some doing was able to maneuver it below where the seat back is hinged making sure that when the seat back swings up and down that there is no way for it to catch or rub against the wire. This took a bit of doing getting the wire to go exactly where I wanted and again, if you had a good fishing tool, it probably would have made this easier but I was able to do it without it.
*From here it was easy to tuck the wire just under the plastic trim that goes along the floor from the rear passenger seat all the way up the driver side.
*In the area where the drivers feet go, on the left side, I ran the cable up the side still able to keep it tucked under plastic.
*Remove the protective plastic paned that is right above the drivers feet. There is one screw and two clips.
*Run wire above this cover over to center console above gas pedal.


Get access to center console:

*This was actually the easiest of the process
*Remove panel that has the start button on it. I found it easier if you pull out on the left side where the start button is (see pic for clip locations). It takes a moderate amount of force to get it to start, but after the first clip pops, the rest is easier. This was the only part that made me wince as I had to pull harder than I had hoped.
*Disconnect the three wire sets from this panel. I found that the middle one that is white was a bit harder to disconnect than the others
*Now remove the plastic cover that is beneath the radio controls. They say you need a special tool. I used a plastic tool that came with a kit I had to replace an iphone battery. It needs to be thin. Plastic is obviously better than metal to avoid scratches. There are three very small protrusions on this piece that you are trying to disengage (about equally spaced). Once you’ve done that the piece pops out relatively easily. Disconnect the LED light from this piece.
*Remove the 4 screws from the radio control panel, pull the panel away and disconnect the 2 wire sets. Note that the connectors to these wires are different from the ones on the start button panel. You need to push down a plastic locking piece and then swing the plastic lever to get it to disengage.
*Remove 4 screws from the Nav unit and pull the unit forward.
*Disconnect the wire connector block from the Nav unit. This connection also uses a lever type mechanism to hold it in place. I did not remove the other connections from the Nav unit and just chose to let it sit pulled out as far as I could get it.
*Remove the 2 screws from the LCD panel and pull the LCD panel out and set on dash.

Finish routing camera extension cable:
*Now use your fishing device to get down from the center console area to the drivers feet area and pull the camera extension cable up.


Install Video interface (VI):

*Using the schematic, attach all the cables to the VI. The diagram is off slightly as there is no separate power cable that goes to the LCD. Don’t forget to attach both parts of the camera extension cable to the VI, the very small plastic connector goes directly to the unit but the yellow standard video connector also needs to be attached to the multi/input/output cable.
*If you have another video input source to connect to this unit, you should do that now.
*Route the power cable wires down to the Nav unit and connect them as shown in the diagram. Verify that you are connecting to the correct PIN. (On the bottom of the connector that attaches to the Nav unit, the holes are numbered, albeit very small printing that can be hard to see.)
*When tying into the lines and using the supplied connector clips, you must use pliers to get the connector clip completely closed (see pic). I didn’t understand this at first and this lead to frustration on my part and it was only after I sent a picture to Patryk, that he figured out what was wrong.
*In my car, the power wire in PIN15 is all red and it is very thick unlike all the other wires. This also held true for PIN12 (Brown ground).
*Now you should test it. I reconnected the start button wire to start the car.
*If you want to be able to use the other inputs, or do a service check, you need to do a bit more. After connecting the Infrared cable and Manual push button cable, route those wires down and over toward a hole in the dash that is right near the push button start. Use your fishing tool to get the wire down to the drivers feet area and then place them wherever you think will work. I routed them over to the left part of the footwell. I attached the IR and bush button sensors high up on the left hand side where they can be reached easily but not really seen.
*Finally I attached some small bubble wrap, twisted and then wrapped around the can (but not covering the air circulation holes) so that it wouldn’t rattle in place. I also bound up the numerous video cable connectors so they wouldn’t bang around.
*If you are concerned that the VI stays on even when the car is off, don’t be. For some reason when you are in the car working on it (even when nothing else in the car is on), the LED’s for this unit will stay lit (and the unit stays warm), but once you exit the car like normal and go away and come back in 3-5 minutes, those LED lights will be out and the unit will be off.
*Now you can reassemble the dash in the reverse order.


The only thing I damaged was a couple of those white plastic clips that hold all of the panels in place and they are easy to replace.