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| Thanks evilshell, I checked the treads. Especially useful are the folks' experience who actually brought a car with them. There are a lot of "theorists'" postings regarding importing cars. I am still trying to find out if anyone with USA beemers has been able to have their cars reprogrammed in order to make the radio/GPS work properly. There is a company (http://www.car-coding.de/index.html) in Germany that claims they can do this (at least for Germany). I haven't been able to get in touch with them and I am wondering if ANYBODY in CH can do this. Not expecting any help from BMW CH; I have already been in touch with them and they give me the "buy one here" attitude of course even though this will be a "Hausrat" import and not a gray market type of import. | |
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Re Radio & Nav (I have done a lot of reprogramming BMW systems)
For your car:
Nav:
If you have the DVD-based map, then you can insert a new Europe DVD and the nav will work
If you have the harddrive based map, then you must purchase the map at BMW, because it needs to be downloaded onto the harddrive and you must buy a decryption key. Only available from a dealer at dealer prices!!
Radio:
The region coding of the radio is intrinsically linked to the vehicle region coding - in your case USA.
Changing the region coding was never foreseen by BMW and thus is not officially supported. Doesn't mean it cannot be done, but must be done by clever car "hackers" with the right tools.
After all, it is just a "software" setting :-) (but really hard to change - it has lots of flow-on effects in the whole vehicle)
Be aware that when changing region coding, all software updates available may possible no longer work, as the region coding is a core parameter for the vehicle.
I'd suggest you use the following steps:
1. Ensure the vehicle has the latest version software loaded BEFORE you change anything else. Note that you may not get new versions unless you explicitly ask the dealer to do this job!
2. Drive to Munich and visit Car Coding.de
I've looked at his website and based on my own personal experience doing this sort of work, this guy sounds like he knowns what he is doing and has good experience.
(I'm NOT going to offer to do it myself, because my experience is with the older generation BMW vehicles, and I do not have the tools for the newer cars)
MAKE SURE you know what system you have before you drive to Munich... do you have MASK, CCC or CIC?
BE AWARE that a new CCC or CIC system can cost a few thousand Euros (they are highly complex devices) and ensure you talk to car-coding.de about whether he can recode 2nd hand items, otherwise you may have to purchase new (which gets a bit tricky...)
Factor in the effort and costs when considering bringing the USA car to Europe.
But it can be done...