Harnesses are ready for testing.. I made three. The second one came out best I think--was running out of wire on the last one so had to make it short, lol. Detailed DIY coming in the next few days..

 

Someone PM'd me earlier and pointed out a possible problem.. the combox I bought is listed as

S609A=No

S639A=Yes

S6VCA=Yes

on realoem--so I am not sure it will work my setup. Still worth a shot though!

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=PG77&mospid=51049&btnr=84_0800&hg=84&fg=10&hl=1

 

Pin 14?

Here is where I am now:

CIC works with nav and voice grayed out. The numbers do not light up although the CCC had buttton lighting. My car is pre-LCI so I thought my harness would have a lead going to pin 14. It does not now... Of course, I replaced that big square ("quad") socket as mine had a crack on the side preventing my MOST connector from staying snapped in. I had to move all the wires over - middle, after pulling out the blue tab. Maybe I mis-connected? Here is a link to Schpenxel's best photo that shows OEM wires for his pre-LCI (as shown on Page 2 of this thread...)

EDITED TO POST SOLUTION - Seeing that my emulator had every terminal wired in - including pin 14 (wiring was standard car stereo orange - even had "illumination" printed on the side...), I just took one wire out of a different pin location where no OEM wire fed into that harness - and moved it over to pin 14 on my OEM harness. Then I followed the routine to splice into pin 2 wiring on the hazard/door lock switch - lighting now works fine.

Thanks to dbond, my old CCC "high" idrive controller works after I used Winkfp to downgrade ("dumb down"). Today, I tried my next "new" controller, p/n 65829231118. The last seven, 9231118 is all that shows on the label. Using all the software tools, I cannot establish communication from car to it. I checked and rechecked the 4 wires that get moved out of big harness into a 4-wire harness. Nothing, and you guys seem to indicate that the controller should power up, be read, and that ZBE2 (or zbeh60, tried both?) accept a default coding. Using some of my pin collection I made up an adapter harness so now I can just plug and unplug without having to pull wires out of the small sockets. Could I have a controller from the wrong family? Mine shows for E6x and E9x. Schpenxel's (see his photos) comes from a different family than mine. His family shows for E5x and E6x and has a 1116 while mine has a 1118 in it. I get that these may require coding to work, but that can't happen if the car can't even see that a controller is hooked up...

Today I really worked with DIS/GT1 to run the quick test and then do diagnostics. I had no idea about the detail you can extract about each module - and the tests you can run on them..Very neat and I was able to do a CIC reset, hoped that might change things, nope.

Oh, last night, I default coded kombi and that indeed gets rid of extraneous lines for Service info. Now it shows just what it did w CCC.

Finally it looks like I am being refunded by PayPal on my first CIC, saw an email to that effect just tonight, man they take their time leveraging interest with OPM....

 

Unless there is a problem with wiring your controller is dead. You should be able to read AIF (UIF) of any E-series controller. Your's E-series by p/n. The good thing you have your old controller working now, the new one can wait till a good deal comes around

 

I went out and checked the four wires that come out of the larger 8-pin socket and plug into the 4 pin socket and into the new controller. I actually got an extra 4 pin socket and made up a jumper wire harness so I can just unplug the old, pull jumper out of the new 4 pin, and those 4 wires plug in to my new controller. Pin 1 is orange kcan, the + lead I think... Pin 2, that wire looks red to me and it's the other kcan lead, minus? When I connect my multimeter red lead to pin 1 and black lead to pin 2, I see +17v on my voltmeter. Pin 3 is ground (black wire) and pin 4 is power (yellow wire). When I connect my multimeter across pins 4 and 3, I see about +5v.

Hard to imagine that I would have 4 wires screwed up, and the car is working fine whenever I go back to the old controller. Basically, the orange-looking kcan wire is at one side, the yellow power wire is at the other...so the black ground and other kcan wire are in play? Help?

Here's a photo of a wiring schematic for the Controller. You can see the wire 1,2,4, and 5 and why those would be used in the newer controller as well. Question to figure is is all of those but the ground actually carry a signal. CAN H and CAN L for example...

 

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=723325

Thread on how to make the combox plug and play harness..

 

check your email:thumbup:

 

have any luck figuring it out today? I seem to have bigger fish to fry at the moment (i.e. head gasket blown, at best) so haven't had a chance to do mine yet

 

Was it indeed a blown head gasket? What happened - gradual deal or all at once? Pull both heads? There's a place out in LA with an eBay store - selling the motor out of a 750i Alpina for 4 grand. Wonder if those are souped up versions of the 4.8 V-8?

 

Updated Situation: Today...

I spent a very interesting hour with Vlad of BimmerRetrofit - swapping IM's on Skype with myiPad (and checking emails on my Blackberry) while he had remote control of my laptop - connected to my car with my USB cable....My nav and voice are running through the CIC. No more grayed out options. While everyone's situation will likely be unique as to what CIC they got and what was in it, here's mine by summary:

I bought an Exchange CIC from an online vender (BMW Dealer) who gave great service.

The p/n ends in 9916 - but that is just a sticker they apply over the original p/n when they do the refurb before sending back to BMW.

I installed the unit and did a quick default code update after changing VO to #0909 and adding $6VA - per these threads.

After sorting out the old CCC controller issue (dbond posting up that I needed to dumb it down from 6963051 using WinKFP...see a few pages back in this thread), I had good function except that Nav and Voice were grayed out - whether or not I used my PnP emulator.

I tried two different iDive controllers, p/n ending in 1118 - neither was recognized by my CIC, so no updating or coding of them was possible. Both returned.

I set up an appointment for remote coding (a week out, just had it this morning).

Here is what Vlad found - no VIN in my HU, but CAS had my VIN. North America Premium Maps, 2011 were on the hard drive. While the certificates were present, no FSC's were there. My CIC's current software was strange (this is the way it came to me, honest!)

Addr 63 ZB_NR ID: 9253421

Addr 62 ZB_NR ID: 9239243

Addr A0 ZB_NR ID: 9239246- three different pieces for which the ISTA levels should be the same. Not so here as these ZB_NR's represent that: addr63 is at ISTA 45, and Addr 62 and A0 are both at ISTA 42. I recognize these module numbers from my "Lesen" efforts in Tool32 and WinKFP, but I have no clue how they correspond to an ISTA level. I assume that the rest of my car is at level 49 with ZB_NR's to correlate...

Now for the really cool part - after he along with many others let me know that importing FSC's was impossible over my USB (slow) connection, he must have tried it to see what effect the differing s/w levels might have...because:

He was able to insert a VIN and FSC's into my CIC and get nav and voice up and running. All with my cable - No ICOM A+B+C or anything. He said my cable somehow allowed him to do this...? Once he imported the VIN and FSC's, I saw my screen reboot and nav stayed white. He said try it and it worked great.

Looking foward, my upgrade path to combox, etc. would require that my software be updated and more coding - Vlad said I would need to ship the CIC to him for that as you need to ensure that you have a reliable 10-15MB bandwidth capability to avoid serious issues in the attempt to update. He went on to explain that although he didn't like the different sofware levels in it, my CIC seemed to be working fine for me as is, until I was ready to go for a combox. [UPDATE] Others have reported success with 9253419 (nearly identical) # for 63 and the same exact #'s for 62 and A0 as I have, so try it out first...

They use a really cool sofware interface with many tabs including eFSC, FSC Codes, Tool32, etc...

I will check my wires once more for the controller, but I think it is wired properly - or my existing one would not work either. I run a 4-pin adapter harness I made to connect the old one. No more pin swapping for me!

 

This is indeed an interesting combination of software across CIC modules! Addr62 and A0 are at ISTA V40 and Addr. 63 is at V41. The later is where you want to be for no FSC for BMW Apps. FSCs are between 188 and 512 bytes. Inserting them with a D-CAN cable and the right knowledge is not a problem. Upgrading CIC software for Combox support is. A fiberoptics connection via MOST bus is required.

 

0956 - yes! 0958 (1118), not so much...

From my earlier post:

I tried two different iDive controllers, p/n ending in 1118 - neither was recognized by my CIC, so no updating or coding of them was possible. Both returned.​

Ok, so today I received my third "new" controller to try. Its part number is 65829240956 - and it worked the instant I plugged it in. No coding, nothing, just saw the buttons light up and all the extra buttons work, scroll rate is good, all fine!

The lesson for me is that not all E series controllers will work. If you have a CIC, like I do, for which you have no clue regarding from what model of BMW it originated, using those only specified for our model may not work for you... Better to select one from each US family, sort of...

Making this more complicated is that I saw a controller listed for an Fxx car, ran the part # on RealOEM, and it traced back to being a follow on part number to one of our Exx numbers. Would that work in someone's Exx? For me, the current US part number of .....0956 worked fine, and likely an earlier number (now "ENDED") in that family would work for me as well. I do know that neither of the ...1118 (current US part #...0958) controllers worked for me, same wiring, etc...

The photo is to illustrate the joy of extra buttons - and the joy of trying to fit a 2-D object (the 999 cover that everyone uses) into a 3-D hole. You can see the relative widths of my OEM vs. the new. Even worse, the OEM is widest at a different point than the new. For now I cut some edges off of my OEM switch cover and slid them in to fill in the air gaps in my console. Not perfect, but it is secure and works great. I came up with a range of other plastic parts (from a 5er and I think a base from a 3 series - was snapped on my latest controller) thinking that I may be able to shape something that looks tidier. The custom car stereo crowd loves this step of the process and I have done some nice installs myself...

The 6er begs for a top-notch "sano" install and some folks cut more out of their console to allow the entire cover to rest down in the opening with uniform trimming around that. Then they have the console recovered - black leather...

For me, I wanted to try (for this first fitting anyway) to get the switch plate to flush mount. Perhaps if I heated it up, it might bend enough to take up some more contour? Too bad we don't have a choice that provides a wider band around the edges.

 

Awesome thread... I have been keen to do this for a while since I decided against getting a new car any time soon.

Any tips on buying the CIC? Based on features supported, I would prefer the european version.. how does one identify the version or do you have to trust the eBay seller?

 

You do realize the Euro version has LESS features, right? US version has HD radio and Sirius built in (on later units at least)

Euro versions do not

 

Euro version has buttons 1 through 8. US is only 1 through 6 + 2 labeled mode and am/fm. But keep in mind front panel can be swapped between the US and Euro headunits. What makes you prefer Euro CIC for US use?

 

Either w/combox will work for the internet stuff AFAIK

Also, I had a typo in my post. The euro version has less features. The US version has Sirius+HD

 

Now I just need to find a unit that isn't coming from Lithuania or Latvia.. which is where most of the ones I see on eBay are located.

 

Good luck with that, lol.. Mine came from the UK, but I think he got it from one of those places

 

Do you have a cable to do the coding yourself? If so I can try to help.

With the emulator installed I thought Navigation would have already been working..

 

Do you have a cable to do the coding yourself? If so I can try to help.

With the emulator installed I thought Navigation would have already been working..

I expect OBD2 cable any day now in my mailbox (I have not bought it particulary for coding this CIC unit, but for discovering & learning of coding in future), but I already called a near specialist for coding and he will look into it in a day or two ... Thank you for willing to help me

 

Ok, I went to the coding specialist today to code CIC to my car and he sorted everything out, except the navigation, voice control and USB port (we totally forgotten enabling that) are not active. The seller of CIC unit claims that he installed emulator into CIC unit, but because navi & voice control still not working (buttons greyed out) there is possible that emulator is not installed correctly (maybe not installed at all) or not working correctly ... Seller says he will connect to my car remotely and try to fix this remaining problems ... we'll see ...

 

I would expect you'd notice the emulator.. If you look at the pictures in this thread it's a good size box that gets wired in.

 

AFAIK emulators can also be installed inside the Cic unit ... the seller applied stickers all over the CIC housing which prevents opening the unit without loosing the warranty, so I have not opened it, yet ...

 

Salko and Lib...

Look at the many older posts here and on BMWCoding - they have a 50 page "How To: Retrofit Combox..." thread that really gives tons of info for CIC as well. I ran searches within that post to learn combox cable part #'s etc., as I get ready to try another DIY for that!

Anyway, it seems that the "chips" or small boards may have been the first way that folks got CIC emulation going? Now, everyone seems to use the small outboard boxes (made in China...) and some even pay a little bit more for a complete PnP harness set up - like I did (from Bimmer-Tuning in Germany). I would think that if the retrofit pioneers got the chips to work in the 2011 timeframe, that they should still work today? Of course, makes it very hard to take out of the loop for troubleshooting...

When you get your remote coding, you will probably see that your real VIN is loaded in the CAS module, but you want to be sure that you also have the proper certificates there (mine did) and a (donor car) VIN loaded for the "HU." This is where the FSC's come in. My guy was able to set an HU VIN, then import the necessary FSC's through my USB cable - that allowed my emulator to take over and give me nav/voice. Read back a few pages in this (and a few others) thread and you can get more details as to how they (Vlad from BimmerRetrofit - for a $250 fee to remote code stuff that I did not buy from them - great deal there!) got all the FSC's listed 00170001, 00190001, 001B0001 and 002D0003 (this one had no corresponding certificate, but it went in anyway)... but not the 006F0001 as that is apparently only used if your CIC has Sirius internal to it, mine did not, so it read "nicht_vorhanden.".

I have seen some opine recently that many of these units were "donated" from cars out of Western Europe - rent a car in Europe and you see how they exclude you from driving into certain E Europe countries...

If you want a US unit, as I did, there is one on eBay for ~$1100 and the guy seemed legit when I checked on it awhile back, gave me the VIN of the car it came out of (working) etc... The other option seems to be what I did - buy a "stripped" exchange unit from a BMW dealer. Mine came with 2011 maps, but no HU VIN or FSC's at all.

 

I'm still trying to figure out the whole cradle/6NF/iphone 5/5s/antenna thing now.. If I remember correctly there is a way around having to use the cradle where you end up with just a USB port basically that you plug the phone into like normal.

I have read conflicting reports on the antenna--some people say there is no real antenna input on newer iphones so it's not actually doing anything, others say their coverage improves, so who knows. Technically there is no antenna connection in the dock connector on a 4s for example, so any increase in coverage is coming from something else

(yeah, 5c is pretty much exactly what you said it is.. I got the 5S and it's basically 5, with slightly better camera + fingerprint reader of course. I have to say the camera surprised me.. it takes some super sharp pictures)

 

I did the same, lol

 

I have read about that too. Basically that you use your Lightning - USB cable (came w the phone) to plug your phone into just the USB port on the 6FL jack in your console and it gets full a/v function without need for other cables...?

If that is so, then the parts list might be simpler. That 50pp thread lists things out right at the end, but it could be:

combox (media or telematics),
your PnP harness (send me one?),
FAKRA cable from combox back to the console for 6FL,
a USB/Aux-in snap-in port, (or another USB-only just like in glovebox if the aux-in cable is no longer needed (or just leave my existing one alone to retain Aux as a menu choice),
if we must - another cable for the aux-in (mini RCA) jack also in the console, and
an adapter (close cable pair to two FAKRA leads) to run the two FAKRA (from the TCU you took out) telematics (BMW Assist) cables into the combox - if going that route.

 

if anyone else wants a combox plug and play harness please let me know. I have at least one more I can part with

Haven't had a chance to test it yet, so I'd rather sell to someone who has the ability to to move wires around/troubleshoot it if necessary

please PM me if so

 

I have a 2007 pre-LCI 525i with Pro Nav and the CCC has now take a major swan dive into the abyss. Of course it's was just a few K miles after the extended warranty! In any event, pondering CIC retrofit instead putting some of that same money into replacing CCC. I've read through this great thread and looked at places like bimmer-tech and am unclear on the whole "PnP module vs. OEM Activatation" and there seems to be MAJOR differences in price between them!

Can someone help break down the basics on this for me? And in either case, are the Combox features an entirely separate decision?

I'm also curious what the implications are for on-going service on the car and any relevant programming required.

Thanks in advance!

 

The cic units have an activation code in them that is tied to the vin of the car the unit was originally in (there is one for navigation and another for voice controls). When the cic is installed in a car other than the original, it figures out the codes it has do not match the vin of the car it's installed into, and disables those functions

The two ways around this are to either buy new codes that match the vin of your car (expensive) or install an emulator which tricks the CIC into thinking it's still in the original car, and thus enabling the nav and voice features (assuming these were activated in the car it came out of). These can be found for $100 or so

 

Thanks, can you purchase factory fresh CIC anywhere and have it coded to your own VIN or all they all "used" out there?

 

You can buy a new one (may be remanufactured actually, not 100% sure) but still have to buy the FSC code to activate navigation/voice as far as I know. djcwardog would be able to better answer that..

 

Wow.. most useful thread I have found in a while!!

Ordered my Combox and harness