Parrot MKI9200 in an 1999 E39 BMW 5

ajamesr

Just fitted an MKI9200 to my E39 yesterday. Information was a little difficult to come by before hand so here's my experience.

Got kit from Halfords: €179
Got SOP lead from ebay, guy in Carlow posted it and I had it in 2 days. Think it was like €15 total. My 99 needed the round type connection block.

Fitting was easy enough. Almost all the guides on removing the head unit said that there was an allen key behind the volume knob, but there wasn't. Its a kind of spring loaded flat head. You turn the screw a quater anti-clockwise and when you release it it springs back to its original position. So turn it, hold it there and at the same time gently but firmly pull the head unit towards you from that side, it comes out and thats all that is holding it in.

With the head unit out its pretty straight forward for anyone anyway handy with their hands. Pull of the passenger side pillar to run you mic cable up. Hex head in behind the "Airbag" logo at the top, and a clip about half way down. The clip may break, don't panic its not greatly important but a bit of super glue would prob fix it back.
A lot of places recommend disconnecting battery to avoid airbag deploying etc etc. I'm not telling you not to do that, but I didn't and I had no issues.
I installed mine in the glove box, it gets used for nothing else and I wanted easy access to the brain box in case of any issues in future. All the wires ran there nicely.
I installed the ipod connecter lead in the little tray or holder with the slide up and down flap behind the ashtray in the center console. The console comes up handy as well. NO need to remove cup holders in front or the central arm rest. Lift up gear knob cover (mines auto) undo two srcews there. Pop up hazard light, screw in under there, and pop out the tray with the slide door, two screws under there. The whole thing should lift up at that point gving handy access to everything you need to run the cable.

In hindsight you probably could just remove the Tray Holder with the Slide door and push the cable up the side of the central console from below and fish the cable through the hole where the tray holder was, but I'm not sure how easy all that would be.

I needed to switch the red and orange cable that came with the Parrot. Simple matter of swapping them at the fuse holder points, takes ten seconds. You will need to do this if - when you switch of the car and take the key out your parrot screen doesn't say "GoodBye". If it doesn't say "GoodBye" it is still taking power from your battery. Swap the red and orange cables to fix this.

I do like good sound but I am conscience that you get what you pay for and to be honest what it would cost to get really good sound (and I mean really good) in a car I am not willing to pay. I can't justify it. Not to mention if you put that kind of system in your car and plug an ipod into it with MP3's your still only getting average quality sound - A chain is only as strong as its weekest link. For what I'm listening to in my car ( mostly MP3's & Podcasts) the Parrot handles quite well, in fact very well.
Yes the parrot does replace your OEM headunit amp and uses its own amp, but its not underpowered. Only for I know from research that this is what is happening I don't think I would have noticed.

Sound goes to ALL speakers and you control all elements of the sound (volume, equaliser etc ) from the parrot screen not your cars OEM head unit.

However - when you disconnect you ipod/iphone from the Parrot lead the OEM headunit will still operate as a radio, tape player and CD changer through the OEM amp. In otherwords, everything that was there before still works exactly as it did before. The SOP lead you use to fit the Parrot doesn't replace your current system, it adds to it. SOP stands for "Sound On Top". The Parrot kicks in when you plug somehting in or a call comes through - otherwise your OEM headunit performs as it did.

To keep your CD changer working you will need to pull a cable from the block that was going directly into the back of your OEM head unit and fix it into the new SOP block that goes into the head unit. There is a blue clip holding that lead in place, lift the blue clip, remove the clip, remove the lead and replace clip and lead in new block. Your CD changer is now active again from the head unit.

Can't think of much else to say. Handy enough job. Tidy when its finished and quality is easily on a par with what was already there. AND BONUS I don't lose any of what was already there. The Parrot system just piggybacks on it and gives you more options.

Its thumbs up from me so far.

PS. This should go without saying but before you put everything back together, or even before you go running all your wires etc etc, just losely plug everything in as soon as you can and test that everything is working as it should before proceeding. Check the screen, the remote etc etc. You don't want a problem at the stage where everything is fitted and have to undo anything to bring bits back for replacement. And it gives you a chance to make sure the orange and red cables are the right way around before you go making them really difficult to get at.