CD Changer Install in 2002 E46 BMW cabrio

I received my Sony changer package from Autotoys.com and installed it in about 10 minutes.  It took about another 15 to figure out where I actually wanted to mount the changer.

Here are the details:

A shot of the left tray before removing:
 

(Those little marks in the tray are not scratches, they are dog hairs.  We keep our dog seat-belt harness in the trunk for when Calvin when rides in the bimmer with the top down.)

Same area with the tray removed. The black roll is the fabric covering for the CD changer connections.
 


Here's the connections and the Soundgate adapter:
 


All of the trunk pieces put back in and the changer hooked to the adapter:

 

The changer has 10-second ESP (read-ahead buffering), so skipping doesn't seem to be a big problem. I debated for a while on exactly where to mount the unit.  BMW sells a special mounting kit including brackets and new trunk lining to do an "internal" mount, but I wasn't sure I wanted to lose the trunk space this would require.  Their kit is designed for their OEM CD changer and also the navigation unit, which I don't have.  I also didn't really want to do anything permanent to the trunk, since the vehicle is leased and we don't know if we'll buy the lease out when it ends.  With this in mind, I found a good solution:

  

I attached the changer to a piece of foam cut to fit in the battery cover shelf.  This puts the changer up out of the way of moving objects in the trunk, makes it very easy to access, and consumes virtually no usable space.  The changer is secured to the foam with duct tape (make that 1 million and one uses and counting), and the foam is stuck on the shelf nicely due to the lip around the top.  It will take one hell of a bump to get that thing out of there.  Plus, it can be very easily removed if I should need access to the battery.


   

The wires drop down below the trunk liner, and the excess wires and the Soundgate adapter sit in the spare-tire well below.  I didn't need to drill a single hole or alter the trunk in any way.  The worst thing I may need to deal with if I should have to remove the changer is some duct tape residue on plastic.

Operation

As has been noted before by other BMW owners, accessing discs 7-10 is not as simple as one would hope, you need to get to the end of CD6 and then advance forward. (The BMW OE headunit was only really designed for a 6 CD changer, so there are only buttons for CDs 1-6).  Pressing the CD buttons twice does not take you to them like has been reported on some of the other units (Pioneer???) without the Soundgate adapter.

However, I am not noticing much lag-time while advancing tracks like was reported with the Alpine MP3. It's slightly longer than the in-dash CD, but not enough to be a nuisance. The MP3 cd that I am using to test right now has about 120 songs on it, nested up to one directory deep with 3 directories total. The Sony instructions indicate that although you can nest files in directories, the more directories, the longer accessing will take. Their instructions also include details on the order songs will be played based on the directory structure of the CD.

The online store I purchased from (autotoys.com) indicated that there is supposed to be a noise filter included with the package which is on backorder. I have not detected any interference thus far, but then again, it only has about 30 minutes of use thus far.

The changer and adapter (and noise filter) were sold as a combo package and ran $344 shipped to my door. Seemed reasonable with the Soundgate adapter included, which typically runs about $100 alone.

This install was about as "plug and play" as they come. So far, no complaints. I just have to get around to ripping more audio cd's to MP3 and then organizing them on MP3 cd's appropriately. I have about 600 CD's in my two home changers, and then another 15 or 20GB of MP3 files on my home audio controller PC, so obviously everything isn't going to come close to fitting.


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