Bluetooth Retrofit to pre 3/2002 e46

OK here's the deal. You folks seem to know a lot about the e46's. I have a 2002 330ix, build date is 12/2001. All the data out there on BB's and forums ,Circle Tire, the DIY guides,My local dealer ,etc say the Bluetooth retrofit kit is only availible for 03/2002 and newer. Somewhere while suffing around I found a "service bulletin" as a PDF about a kit for "from 03/2001 without option 640" and that " all the numbers are on the 11/2002 ETK CD". The part number is: 84640 153 221 So I take the number to my local dealer (now they are really nice there, excellent service, but as a previous "gray market" owner I can tell you they don't even want to acknowledge that BMWs are from Germany) and they say "it's not a real number". My guess it it's German BMW number. If that is the case, will it work in my "US" 330ix? And if so where can I get one? The reason I'm so infatuated with Bluetooth is New York State - home of the illegal to drive and hold the cellphone law.
The law is not a bad one, it's just immpossible to get a good hands free cellphone thingy - I've got a box of crappy gadgets to prove it. I've got inside Motorola help on the new Verizon v710.....but I can't get my beloved 330xi to use it! Does anyone have the scoop on this?

Your dealer doesn't know what they are talking about. That is a real part number. I have a MAY 2003 version of the ETK and I can see that part. Any dealer will have an even newer version of the ETK (updates are released regularly to dealers). Here is a screen shot. Print it out and show that dealer. And it's not a German number. When I did a search for that number, I had the ETK configured for only the USA catalog.

Has anybody tried it with pre 3/2002 car yet? My dealer still insists it cant be done !

Try going to a different dealer?

The part is for cars without option 640 though... it was my understanding that all US bound E46s received option 640. DZeckhausen might be able to shed more light on this... talking with him at the NY Auto Show, it was my understanding that all the pre-3/2002 cars need is the standard Bluetooth kit and an amplifier.

Originally Posted by az330xi

OK here's the deal. You folks seem to know a lot about the e46's. I have a 2002 330ix, build date is 12/2001. All the data out there on BB's and forums ,Circle Tire, the DIY guides,My local dealer ,etc say the Bluetooth retrofit kit is only availible for 03/2002 and newer. Somewhere while suffing around I found a "service bulletin" as a PDF about a kit for "from 03/2001 without option 640" and that " all the numbers are on the 11/2002 ETK CD". The part number is: 84640 153 221 So I take the number to my local dealer (now they are really nice there, excellent service, but as a previous "gray market" owner I can tell you they don't even want to acknowledge that BMWs are from Germany) and they say "it's not a real number". My guess it it's German BMW number. If that is the case, will it work in my "US" 330ix? And if so where can I get one? The reason I'm so infatuated with Bluetooth is New York State - home of the illegal to drive and hold the cellphone law.
The law is not a bad one, it's just immpossible to get a good hands free cellphone thingy - I've got a box of crappy gadgets to prove it. I've got inside Motorola help on the new Verizon v710.....but I can't get my beloved 330xi to use it! Does anyone have the scoop on this?

Scuttle butt is that the pre-3/2002 BT retrofit kit is coming, ah, soon. Hopefully before fall. If you can stand it, you might want to wait. I just had the current BT kit installed on my '03 (built 10/02) 330i, using with S/E T616 on Cingular GSM, and it is worth it. Be sure the V710 supports Handsfree profile... the V700 doesn't, apparently, and have heard some about it.

Rick

2 brief things:

I saw something on one of the M5 forums about a pre-03/02 BT kit coming, at least for E39s. No idea if this also applies to E46s, since I believe the wiring is somewhat different between the two.

As for the euro PNs and option 640, US option 640 was different from euro 640 until MY02. From my research it LOOKS like the full euro non-640 kit with the FULL harness may work, though I've heard from toher places that there are coding issues on top of the physical wiring.

For the time/money/effort involved, I gave up and put the SE BT kit in, and will hopefully soon have the steering wheel buttons working (but no MID display).

Dropped the car off warrentee work tonite (Xenon igniter and headlight lenses). Talked to the service manager instead of the Parts manager - he's going to investigate for me. The .pdf file I have describes the parts, harnesses everything. The Motorola geek claims the V710 should work.....now all I need is the 'tooth. I'll post whatever the service manager tells me. Thanks for the info so far, this is a great forum!

Well, the service department did the warrentee work no problems, washed the car, found another broken light lens, was polite etc. Thay did well. However they still deny any way to retro fit BT other than 3/2002 cars forward. Can't get a reply from anyone else either. Sewems I'll have to wait!

Has anyone seen products by this company (not OEM, but it's gotten good reviews and looks okay)...

http://www.raytel-********

They have a hands-free bluetooth and non-bt kits.

Originally Posted by sunilsf

Has anyone seen products by this company (not OEM, but it's gotten good reviews and looks okay)...

http://www.raytel-********

They have a hands-free bluetooth and non-bt kits.

The stuff looks nice, but it's not any more integrated than just getting ay other BT kit.

So far, the second-best thing, in terms of integration, to the BMW kit is what www.eiskits.com offers.

Originally Posted by Kaz

The stuff looks nice, but it's not any more integrated than just getting ay other BT kit.

So far, the second-best thing, in terms of integration, to the BMW kit is what www.eiskits.com offers.

I hadn't heard of this kit, definitely has a nicer integration than the raytel... though looking at their stuff, it only appears to work with two specific phones which can be kind of limiting.

Originally Posted by sunilsf

I hadn't heard of this kit, definitely has a nicer integration than the raytel... though looking at their stuff, it only appears to work with two specific phones which can be kind of limiting.

No, it only works with 2 specific BT kits but those BT kits should work with any BT phone. I have a HCB30 without the EIS kit, and it's a nice BT kit. I asked eiskits.com about the HCB30 (originally they only had the Nokia) and they worked on putting one together, though I haven't bought their kit yet.

Originally Posted by Kaz

No, it only works with 2 specific BT kits but those BT kits should work with any BT phone. I have a HCB30 without the EIS kit, and it's a nice BT kit. I asked eiskits.com about the HCB30 (originally they only had the Nokia) and they worked on putting one together, though I haven't bought their kit yet.

Kaz - I posted something yesterday in the "I have X BT devices brag thread" about the EIS kit -- so don't know if you saw it. A guy I work with stopped by yesterday and gave me Randy's business card. He had Randy install the kit with a HCB30 over the weekend (Randy did the install in person -- advantage of being in Georgia)... He says it works well -- easy to answer incoming calls and can place outgoing calls using voice recognition (he has a T616). I didn't have time to go out to the car to do a test, but its encouraging...

Originally Posted by ZBB 325Ci

Kaz - I posted something yesterday in the "I have X BT devices brag thread" about the EIS kit -- so don't know if you saw it. A guy I work with stopped by yesterday and gave me Randy's business card. He had Randy install the kit with a HCB30 over the weekend (Randy did the install in person -- advantage of being in Georgia)... He says it works well -- easy to answer incoming calls and can place outgoing calls using voice recognition (he has a T616). I didn't have time to go out to the car to do a test, but its encouraging...

Cool. I originally asked Randy about having the option to use the HCB instead of the Nok (I've read some bad things about the Nok), so he started looking into it (he'd already thought about it, apparently) and he got back to me pretty quickly. He was also very helpful in explaining how the BMW mic has shielding issues, and a couple of other things.

This might be of interest...

http://www.eastcoastbmw.net/index.ph...ewtopic&t=5593

Hmm, I'm gonna get on this thread with my problems...

Here's the deal, my car is a 01/02 build and my dealer here in Germany gave me this number for the BT retrofit for my car- 84 64 0 302 166

They went to install it and ran into the problem that the connector for the ULF has more pins than the connector in the trunk of my car. So they contacted BMW in Munich and got this number for an adapter cable- 61 12 0 029 681

This cable comes from a different car (X5 i think) but BMW Munich assured my dealer that this would work. I haven't had the kit installed because I have moved in between all this wiring harness hassel.

Now for my problem. Since I have a pre-03/02 build car, the UHF cable to the armrest won't hook up to the FAKRA cable. The kit came with a FAKRA cable- 84 32 0 138 217, but it is WAAAAY too short to make it to the armrest (the cable is only about 45cm long).

Does anybody have part numbers for the FAKRA to UHF adapter and a part number for a longer FAKRA cable (about 2 meters long)?

hmmmm..... getting closer ....

Looks like people are putting together the same typpe of info that bluer1 and I came up with months ago. I just decided that it wasn't worth the hassle and potential cost.

Good thing is at least looking at the stuff inthat thread, people are coming to the same conclusions we did, confirming our earlier work.

I'm happy with my not-really-integrated HCB-30. If I decide to add the eiskits kit (it's a little pricey, IMO), I may never resume my research.