Hi all
I have been beating my head against the wall for close to a year. They have my money holding one if it comes out. All info I have as was told it was to work from purchase. How can they advertise something they know will not work. The dealer is no help at all as I know more than they do.

 

 

hmmmm, so I was following this thread, but I think I am confused now?

are we saying that part #84212351308 is NOT the snap-in adaptor for the armrest for the iPhone 5?

That's the part number my dealer had given me last summer for it. I have found several on ebay, and eminiparts.com has them as well...

thanks!

Jeff

 

I got the I-phone 5 adapter listed above from our Mini Anchorage dealership last week after talking to the Western Region manager Jeff Wight. Mr. Wight was at our dealership for the one year anniversary celebration when I raised the compatibility issue with the I-phone 5 with him. He told me the media adapter would work with the I-phone 5 and he had our dealership order one for me on his company account.

We got the adapter installed it in five minutes. Everything works great except we can get no sound thru the adapter from the phone. We tried everything we could think of to adjust settings but nothing worked.

E-mailed Mr. Wight explaining the problem. He said he would try and get back to me in a week. We will see what he comes up with for a solution. I feel mislead by mini as I would never have purchased mini connected if I knew my iPhone 5 would not work with it. The only way to get sound is connecting both the lightning USB cable and the aux input sound cable. I can do this with my 2004 cooper.

Below is picture of the box the media cradle came in. The media cradle is nothing except a very expensive phone charger. On the back of the cradle in small letting it does say for iPhone 5. I suppose it works with BMW's but not the mini countryman.

 

The lightning connector does not support analogue audio, so until BMW/Mini want to integrate a digital to analogue converter in the adapter/cradle or provide a digital path to the radio, sound will be suspiciously absent.

Since they should have smart engineers over there this should not surprise them.

 

Yes I know about all of this I have been their test here also. If anyone anywhere finds out let us all know. The news I have been told is BMW has issues with Apple and they don't want to play ball with them. Don't understand as it is number one phone anywhere and the phone is almost two years old and my car is a 2013. Sorry not a r60 but a r56 jcw. Madding. All the paperwork and brochures say it works with ALL iPhones. What a waste a money for us and almost illegal to advertise and sell knowing.

Thanks for help.

 

Heard back from Jeff Wight Mini USA Western Region manager concerning solutions for mini connected and i-phone 5. Mr. Wight said "I have done some research and unfortunately the snap in adapter that we got is not compatible with mini connected. The Mini team has not yet developed a snap in adapter that will provide full iPhone 5 Mini connected functionality. We do however have a newly released Y cable available that will allow for music and media compatibility. Part number 61 12 2 287 505"

I am thinking I could have gotten just the Y cable without the mini connected package and saved myself a lot of money. We love our countryman but we are frustrated with Mini USA aggressively advertising the mini connected package when they know it doesn't work with one of the most popular smart phones on the market. I get the feeling they are not planning on trying to do some sort of software upgrade to make it work either. I think the plans are engineer it into the next version of the countryman due out in 2017 and leave the rest of us unconnected. I don't think they see any profit in fixing this problem.

 

I have given the advertising and brochure to m dealer here in Victoria B.C.. Canada as you I am very upset about the false advertising and I mean a lot of it. They wouldn't believe that mini would tell me it would work or sales would tell me this but if I could show them written proof they would do something to help.

We'll I did send them the brochure they have on line stating this and have the brochure I had when I bought the car. So now I wait to see what they do. As they didn't expect me to find written proof of the false advertising. I have thought of news or tv or après to see what happens. But first I will see.

 

Everyone needs to take a deep breath as they sit back and drink the Bavarian KoolAde. Buried deep in the literature are the caveat emptor statements. Should be something along the lines of "some features late availability", "not all features available on all models", "BMW reserves the right to blow smoke up your tailpipe", etc. True MINI enthusiasts know that the "fun factor" is all that matters - everything else is just unnecessary fluff. If the KoolAde has kicked in, go take your MINI up and down a few hills, around some bends, through some switchbacks, etc. You'll forget all about the fluff.

 

Fully agree and the car is the most fun I've had in a car. It's just one of htr main reasons I got the nav/ connected package( honesty I people and companies is big to me) . Never would I get a different car just with radio only unless I was rich. Haha

 

I agree mini is not all about the technology for me. We love both our cars and the mini connected had nothing to do with us buying our countryman. It is frustrating to have a company aggressively selling an additional premium package that they know doesn't work and they have no plans of getting it to work. It would be nice to have a company be completely honest about its product for a change, but we all know in the real world profit is king.

 

I hope this helps someone who struggled with this issue; I live in Germany and the cost of the cradle for the iphone 5s was prohibitive, so i removed the blank from the center console and mounted an iphone 5 charging cable in the blank and routed it to a usb charger plugged in to the rear cigarette lighter below. Added padding to the blank (carpet non slip) and fixed in place using super glue. Phone easily slips on to lightening adapter and rests on padding while bluetooth connected to car audio / phone system. You can also mount an aux (headphone) cable to blank and run the cable to front aux in if desired. using black aux / charging cables makes the install blend in to dark interior. cheers from Germany Hitch

 

Well after one year with my money for the part and lots of promises to do something for me the dealer said take your money we are not doing anything. I had given them the original brochure for mini connect saying it would worked as they asked for and service manager said he would go to bat to correct this he did nothing. He passed it off to someone else and wiped his hands of it. Soon as I had the evidence he started hiding and not answering emails. So I have given up on mini. The car is lots of fun and I enjoy it as a car but I would never trust them ever again. Anything for a buck.
Thank you all for help and ideas. Monaco forever.