Hi,

at these day I want to buy a new car. I allready installed a Empeg and a NAV System (Carin 520) in my actually BMW 325 (E36), and everything works great.

My BMW dealer told me that is near impossible to install a standard DIN sized Radio into the new modell (525 or 730).
One of the reason was, that BMW use now a bus system for a lot of things.

I never want to loose the Empeg in my next car, but I also realy like these cars. Did anyone know a solution for my problem. Maybe someone knows a special company that could help me with my installation problems, or have allready a solution.

I live in germany (Essen), but any solution outside germany are also welcome.

Thanks for any help or support !

I know this is no consolation, but in any car with DIN mounting problems, it's going to be the same for any aftermarket radio. Not just the Empeg.

A car company that deliberately manufactures a car without the ability to mount a DIN radio is giving a big "screw you" to every single aftermarket stereo manufacturer out there. They are basically trying to universally alienate Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Kenwood, Rockford Fosgate, JVC, Clarion, Blaupunkt... and hell, everyone else out there while they're at it.

I don't see why a car company would even consider making a car like that. I mean, don't these guys get their factory radios manufactured by the above companies? Why would you want to piss off your supplier?

But having said that...

Don't underestimate the ingenuity of aftermarket installers and kit makers. There's probably ways to do what you want to do, the question is how much work and expense you're willing to go to.

___________
Tony Fabris

How important is the bus connection to the radio? Is it just so the radio can display information somewhere else on the dashboard, for the steering wheel controls, or so that information can be displayed on the radio? I can't see it as being absolutely necessary for the operation of the vehicle that the radio is connected to the bus (probably CAN bus being a BMW), but maybe a few nice features wouldn't work. It would be nice to have a few more details. Maybe we can figure out a workaround for some of these vehicles. The empeg does have a serial port afterall, and I'm sure you can get serial to CAN bus converters (I know you can definitely get USB to CAN converters) ... Derek (aus Duisburg)

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 6GB blue)

Now that would seriously rock to have the Empeg support an internal car bus to display stuff on the dashboard....

Till

Well as it happens i have an appointment with my BMW dealer on friday. I need to have the airco pannel replaced since it has malfunctioned (and I bet me shorting out the cigarette lighter and several other things the other day when mucking around in the car helped create this malfunction ). At any rate I am pretty friendly with a few of the mechanics there and will query them for info. I did so for the series 3 before and they were very forthcomming, even when I started talking about chiptuning. I'll see if they can get me some hard data. Maybe even tech-schematics if that is't too much of a political issue.

I'll see what I can do. Oh and if that don't reveal much I will go to a local installer here in Belgium. One who has loads of experience in installing just about anything in anything. They will surely be able to tell me more.

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

i beleve this link http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~esrpy/can1.htm#INTRO contains some info on the bus used

andrew butler
sn 08000176 6G amber