What Should E90 Owners Know before buying a BMW Navigation

If you plan to install an aftermarket head unit to replace the factory BMW Navigation E90, the first thing you should know is which unit can fit and work for your car. There are so many different navigation units in the market; some are with good quality while others are not.

 

The e90 BMW Navigation with good quality is specific for the 5th generation of BMW 3 series including BMW 316i, BMW 318i, BMW 320i, BMW 320si, BMW 323i, BMW 325i, BMW 328i, BMW 330i, BMW 335i, BMW 316d, BMW 318d, etc. The dashboard including the factory BMW e90 radio and air conditioning system is more or less the same, some E90 come with automatic air conditioning, while others come with manual air conditioning system, so the panel frame to relocate the a/c unit is different. As for the seat heating buttons below the air conditioning unit, these buttons are no longer being installed anymore unless you can find a place to relocate them. It doesn’t matter, if you control the seat heating in settings of the BMW E90 GPS replacement.

 

If your dashboard is the same as this, you can install this BMW E90 navigation unit because it can fit this dashboard. As this BMW 08 328i comes with automatic air conditioning system, so it should use a relocation kit special for automatic a/c.

 

As you can see, it’s with manual a/c, so the panel frame is special for manual a/c to relocate the air conditioning. That’s not a difficult job for a professional installer, and you don’t need to modify the power plug, just use the special plug to connect the factory plug.

 

Once you confirmed the unit can fit your car except Android 2 din car stereo, the next step is to check if your BMW E90 has fiber optic amplifier, all aftermarket navigation units don’t support the fiber optic amplifier, so if you install it in a car with fiber optic amplifier, there will be no sound after installation. There’s a solution to get sound from the unit, you can connect the 8 speaker wires with your car’s 8 speaker wires for each car door speaker directly and by pass the fiber optic amp, which means the fiber optic amp will not work anymore. And there’s another solution, you can install this unit with another non-fiber optic amplifier, but firstly you need have such amplifier.

The last question is, how can I know if my BMW E90 has fiber optic amplifier? Well, the best to confirm this is by asking your local BMW dealer or service, they are professional and know exactly which parts your car has, they should be able to tell you. If you don’t want to ask them, there’s another method, you can try to take the original CD/radio out, and check the back plug to see if there are 8 speaker wires from this plug, if yes, the car does not have fiber optic amp, if not, it does have fiber optic amp. You can check the below pictures for further checking.

 

If your car has fiber optic amplifier but don’t want to modify wires for installation, you can replace the fiber optic amp with a non-fiber optic amp. Hope it helps, so that you can enjoy the Android Car DVD on your ride.