[Jop1]

Hi All,

I bought my 2015 320D just before covid, I was doing a lot of driving for work but obviously that dropped off since in-person meetings got canned for a long while, meaning the expected mileage I would have had on the car is now much less.

My plan was always to rack up the 30k pa mileage that I expected to achieve for about 4/5 years and then move on to another, however...

I have not long moved in with my now fiance and with cost of living etc. etc. I am now considering just keeping the car as the loan is paid up in a year or so and it only has 70k mileage on the clock (320D ED Diesel) so it'd be nice to have no car payment going out every month you know?

The only problem I have with it is that the iDrive system is pretty outdated. When going round cities sometimes it'll take me down roads that are now bus lanes or sometimes roads that just don't exist now. I'd like Apple carplay for the sake of Google Maps to be honest as I have been burned a lot, also I can't pay for the speed camera feature etc. as I am on NBT / CIC-HIGH system, so I have been looking at third party head units or going the route of some of the coders on here and getting a quote for a full swap out.

Has anyone had any experience with swapping the iDrive system for a third party unit? More looking for advice on functionality really as I don't think I'm up to all that coding.

I have the Pro Nav unit (the wide screen) which also has the feature of directions appearing on the HUD but that wouldn't be the end of the world to lose that, atm it's just telling me to go the wrong way anyway lol.

TL;DR
I want to make this car a bit more futureproof as it has a lot of legs left but the system is painful without Apple carplay.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

[mmm-five]

I've got a 2015 320D Touring, and bought it because I thought it was LCI with the later iDrive.

Didn't realise it wasn't until a few months later that I realised I only had ID4 NBT (Next maps) - I think CIC was the previous version - but I can't say I really miss anything, as my iPhone connects via USB and I play everything through that.

I did research simple upgrades to the software to get ID5/ID6, but there's tales of crashing due to not having enough RAM on the ID4 systems. I looked at complete system upgrades, but in the UK you were looking at over £1000 for genuine parts...and even some of the MMI kits were much more expensive than we see from US sellers.

Although one of the suggestions if you went for the ID4-ID5 software-only upgrade, was to ensure you never used the sat-nav...as that was what crashed the most.

In the end, I kept what I have and it does me...but for the sat-nav, and after paying for new maps and connected drive for a few years, I realised it was much cheaper to get a Garmin DriveSmart 55 MTS sat-nav instead (about £165 at the time). I find it much easier to plan my routes on my computer and transfer them, than trying to use Waze or such...and my iPhone gets really hot if I have it connected to power in the car all day on my long drives.

[steve@codemybimmer]

Originally Posted by mmm-five

I've got a 2015 320D Touring, and bought it because I thought it was LCI with the later iDrive.

Didn't realise it wasn't until a few months later that I realised I only had ID4 NBT (Next maps) - I think CIC was the previous version - but I can't say I really miss anything, as my iPhone connects via USB and I play everything through that.

I did research simple upgrades to the software to get ID5/ID6, but there's tales of crashing due to not having enough RAM on the ID4 systems. I looked at complete system upgrades, but in the UK you were looking at over £1000 for genuine parts...and even some of the MMI kits were much more expensive than we see from US sellers.

Although one of the suggestions if you went for the ID4-ID5 software-only upgrade, was to ensure you never used the sat-nav...as that was what crashed the most.

In the end, I kept what I have and it does me...but for the sat-nav, and after paying for new maps and connected drive for a few years, I realised it was much cheaper to get a Garmin DriveSmart 55 MTS sat-nav instead (about £165 at the time). I find it much easier to plan my routes on my computer and transfer them, than trying to use Waze or such...and my iPhone gets really hot if I have it connected to power in the car all day on my long drives.

Correct - the ID4-ID6 flash is generally stable provided that you don't use the built in satnav. For many folks, they prefer Apple CarPlay over it so it's not a huge loss.

My car has ID7 and a lot of the time, I feel that the GPS on my phone via CarPlay gives me better routing over the stock BMW satnav.

[Andrew_za]

Originally Posted by Jop1

Hi All,

I bought my 2015 320D just before covid, I was doing a lot of driving for work but obviously that dropped off since in-person meetings got canned for a long while, meaning the expected mileage I would have had on the car is now much less.

My plan was always to rack up the 30k pa mileage that I expected to achieve for about 4/5 years and then move on to another, however...

I have not long moved in with my now fiance and with cost of living etc. etc. I am now considering just keeping the car as the loan is paid up in a year or so and it only has 70k mileage on the clock (320D ED Diesel) so it'd be nice to have no car payment going out every month you know?

The only problem I have with it is that the iDrive system is pretty outdated. When going round cities sometimes it'll take me down roads that are now bus lanes or sometimes roads that just don't exist now. I'd like Apple carplay for the sake of Google Maps to be honest as I have been burned a lot, also I can't pay for the speed camera feature etc. as I am on NBT / CIC-HIGH system, so I have been looking at third party head units or going the route of some of the coders on here and getting a quote for a full swap out.

Has anyone had any experience with swapping the iDrive system for a third party unit? More looking for advice on functionality really as I don't think I'm up to all that coding.

I have the Pro Nav unit (the wide screen) which also has the feature of directions appearing on the HUD but that wouldn't be the end of the world to lose that, atm it's just telling me to go the wrong way anyway lol.

TL;DR
I want to make this car a bit more futureproof as it has a lot of legs left but the system is painful without Apple carplay.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Would it be possibe to take a picture of the back of your current NBT unit? Seeing what connectors you are using for GPS will determine how easy the retrofit would be (no ATM bs-ing around)

[Jop1]

Thanks guys, looks like it's a big old hit nowadays to upgrade the unit with a lot of compatability problems with the Pro Nav etc. so I reckon I'll just leave it and take the hit on any map stuff, maybe just need to keep on top of regular map updates on the system and use Google Maps for cities?

Thanks