[hoganscrogan]

BMW M2 Competition iDrive Dashboard removal << for Google

I've had carplay in use all week on my commute, works great but got a little stuttery and disconnected a couple of times when moving my phone away from just under the idrive.

So this morning I installed my £10 wifi antennae bought from amazon.

STEP 1 - Hardest bit was removing the carbon dash/airvent trim as the clips on the left side are pretty secure and I was worried about damaging. there are no youtube videos for this particular car to guide! A couple of trim tool helped and more force than I liked! It did eventually pop off with no damage, however the edge of the carbon is open weave and could definitely get damaged if care not taken!

STEP 2 - Remove radio/ac panel. This requires 2 x torx screws removing then pull evenly around edges to pop off from two lower clips holding bottom half of panel in place.

STEP 3 - Remove iDrive unit. The big silver box with all the electronic gubbins is held at the top by two torx screws. Remove these scews and then the unit just slides forward and out.

STEP 4 - Rotate the idrive unit to reveal back and the WLAN port (purple on my unit) is easily accessible. I plugged in my amazon FACRA wifi antenna then....

STEP 5 - My antenna had a plastic, paddle like end with a 3M adhesive pad on back. I routed this down to the bottom of dash using touch. There is a flat panel right behind where I was placing the phone in front of the cup holders, the antenna paddle fitted perfectly here and stuck in place, the bundled up excess antenna cable fits in the space above with plenty of room to spare.

STEP 6 - put everything back together!

NOTE: As you can see in the pictures I DID NOT disconnect the battery or ANY or the cables attached to the panels or drive units, there was enough slack to do the above with everything still connected and engine off. The only part in the way when installing/removing other units is the airvent panel. I just taped it to the back of the idrive screen to keep out of my way. I used towels and wooly hats to cover areas and parts that might get scratched by the exposed clips and metal edges of things.

Probably not recommended by pro's doing with all plugs in as everything is live but I couldn't be arsed doing it the right way! The wifi antenna doesn't really have much energy running through it and not likely to cause issues so I used this to justify my laziness.


CONCLUSION 15 minutes of work and I was testing my new antenna, Carplay works anywhere in the car now and seems to connect to my phone much quicker, well worth doing. As I said above the only tricky bit it getting the airvent panel off as the force needed feels uncomfortable! Rest was easy-peasy!