Hey this is my first post on the forum, go easy on me .

I have been looking at Mini's in my area, and a couple have caught my eye. I want to get a first generation MCS, but some of the people have replaced dashes? I have attached a picture. Can anyone tell me what they did? I am really interested in doing this to mine, but I can't find any information anywhere.

Thanks

 

The MINI in your photos has the factory Navigation system, with screen in the middle and tach + speedo dual gauge over the steering column. Cars without navigation have a large speedo in the middle and only the tach over the steering column. You didn't say exactly what caught your attention, but I assume that's it.

Trust me, at this point you don't want a 14 year old navigation system.

 

Would there be any way to put something else there besides a sat nav?

 

Yes that is a factory dash. The later cars also had the chrono pack option that gave you the mickey mouse gauges on the steering column and then had oil temp, oil press, fuel, and coolant temp gauges in the center.

Not really a good way to ditch the nav unit there as it is still electronically the instrument cluster.

 

If you currently have sat-nav, you can replace just the screen itself with a phablet: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...e-sort-of.html

If your car doesn't currently have sat-nav, it is very difficult to switch over. The center unit (whether nav or large speedo) also includes the electronics for the gauges and warning lights, and there are a lot of interdependencies that can go wrong if it is switched out.

 

the kombi module is built into the center console, it runs the slave gauges above the steering wheel and has it's vin and mileage hard coded, you cannot swap centers as the vin/miles are not editable once it's coded.

Bmw forums figured out how to zero out the miles/vin by replacing a chip on the board, I'm not sure if it works on minis.

when shopping, if the guage pack is important make sure you buy what you want, it's almost too hard to do to change them out without vin /odometer tamper warnings on the cluster

 

How many miles on this R53 and how much they asking? I went through this process earlier this year with my R53, so would be happy to help.

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.