Ok, just making sure. Let us know.

 

All, There's a great writeup on adding the mirror to an F60 here: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-retrofit.html

It is an easy retrofit by tapping into the rain sensor wiring that is already there. One thing, the rain sensor power circuit remains powered up for 15 or so more minutes after shutdown. The intended power tap, Fuse F52 located behind the glove box, powers down with the ignition. Does anyone know how to add the wire to the fusebox in the back? I've looked up in there and looks like I'll need to remove some vents and the glovebox, then remove the fuse box to get to the back to connect the wire to F52. There's already a 5A fuse in the slot. I suspect it is connected to the parking warning system, indicated by the fuse information sheet located in the fusebox.

Are there any how-to's on removing the fuse box to add a circuit? TIA.

 

Anyone have experience removing the top console? Called the roof function center in the wiring diagrams.

I've looked it over and pulled on a few sides, but I don't want to break anything pulling too hard if it wasn't meant to pull down. Google and YouTube weren't my friend on this - nothing I could find for a how-to on a F60.

Figured it out... pics shortly.

 

is it true that 2nd gen mini rear view mirror will not work on 1st gen minis?

i think all the mounting will match up, its the same electrical plug connector. i believe the pins are different, can anyone confirm? there's not really an definite answer out there for this.

i compared pictures between rearview mirror w/ homelink & auto dim. and the pins location seems to be different between the two generations.

 

kindof, I retrofit it in one of my cars, I had to take the key receiver of my original mirror out and stuck it in the headliner then I powered the autodim on the r56 mirror off the harness that was there. It does not snap to the mount quite as well so it took a while to get it tensioned just right so it would stay on

 

Hello everyone.

This is my first post here about my new-to-me 2012 R56 MCS. And my first modification of this car. Couldn’t have been easier. My car came with manual mirror. I got a $90 Homelink mirror from eBay, twisted the old mirror off, used a stiff piece of wire to jump pins 3 and 8 on the new mirror, and installed it. Took about five minutes.

Homelink works, key remote works. I don’t know if auto-dim does or not, will probably forget to even notice tomorrow. The mirror has constant power but I am not too concerned.

Anyone considering this improvement should jump in and do it. I’m not so fussy that I care about auto-dim (which may work) or constant power to the mirror. I am very satisfied to have OEM look and functionality for Homelink.

Jonathan

 

After the unqualified success installing a Homelink mirror in my R56 (incidentally, the auto-dim works perfectly, the only things the mirror does that are different from a factory installation are 1. it has constant power and 2. it does not un-diim when I put the car in reverse) I decided to see if I could put one in my wife's F55. (I did an eBay Homelink install a few years ago (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...tions.html)but was inspired for a totally factory-look.)

Turns out that the ball and socket joint on all the Mini mirrors is the same. So I got another Homelink & auto-dim mirror from an R56 from eBay and installed it in the F55 yesterday. I simply ran a power wire from the fuse panel behind the glovebox (love add-a-fuse) and a ground wire from the same general area. Up the a-pillar, in front of the headliner, and down the mirror stalk. Connected power to the orange and red wires on the mirror, ground to brown, and now the car has an OEM-look Homelink and auto-dim mirror. Couldn't be easier. Anyone considering their Homelink options should try this out. For $90 I have Homelink that looks like it came from the factory.​​​​​​​

 

Hello all,

I recently re-did the wiring for my retrofit and went away from the jumper wire at the mirror to running the proper wires down to the passenger kick panel fuse box. Since my new mirror came with the car-side pigtail and connector I was able to extract the required qty (4) female pins needed to fabricate the two-wire harness. The one thing I needed to do (and just did) was to code the SPEG to enable the output to the mirror on reverse selection which will un-dim the mirror. I didn't want to VO code the module as that would overwrite all of my current customization so I dug through the SPEG trace file and was able to find the right code to enable it. Unfortunately I didn't write down the name but it was pretty obvious once I saw it. I just searched for the keyword "MIRROR" in the trace file and it was something along the lines of "ELEKTROCHROM MIRROR VERBAUT" or similar.

 

I'm late to the party on this, but I just did this retrofit on my 2012 MCS with a used Homelink/dimming mirror off eBay. It's pretty easy if you buy the terminals that ECS Tuning sells since they just go right into the existing connectors. The mirror I got was off a 2008 but it worked fine in my 2012 including the locking antenna functionality.

The two retrofit wires at the mirror are switched power (terminal 3, green/white, 0.5 mm^2 / 20 AWG) and dimming signal (terminal 1, black/white, 0.35 mm^2 / 22 AWG). As an FYI, the Homelink and dimming will work fine if you just hook up the switched power wire: the dimming signal is only there to clear the mirror when you shift into reverse, but this requires coding the functionality using NCS Expert or equivalent. So if you're not going to bother coding, an easier way to do the install is to just install an add-a-fuse to a switched circuit in the fusebox and run a single 20 AWG wire to mirror connector terminal 3. That way you only need to buy one terminal end and there's no need to mess with the fusebox connectors.

I'm pedantic so I installed both wires per the instructions and coded the reverse functionality via Bimmergeeks Protool, but just wanted to give some additional details and options.

Also note that on cars 11/2008 and earlier the mirror power is from fuse 32, later than that it's fuse 34. My 2012 already had a 7.5A fuse in 34 so there was no need to add one.

 

Thank you so very much for posting this! I was having a heck of a time finding the pin out info. This job is a lot easier once I know exactly which pin connects to which pin. Thank you!

 

I just went through the process of adding an autodim / HomeLink mirror to my 2013 R56 Mini hardtop. It was kind of an iterative process. I installed it first by just jumping the red and orange wires internal to the mirror (easier to work with than the tight wiring at the plug), and the HomeLink worked, but the autodim didn't, and of course the mirror was drawing power 24/7. Probably not a huge deal, but it bothered me enough to make me to want to go to the trouble to do it right.

This thread was a great resource, including the links to the .pdf instructions. I cobbled together a retrofit cable using four female pins I'd cut off a cable I bought to install puddle lights on my Mercedes GLK (seemed to be the same spec as the ones needed for the BMW / Mini connectors). If there had been a pre-made retrofit cable available, I would have bought it, if only to get the nice option of end-to-end sound deadening wrap on the cable. If you're sourcing a mirror from a junkyard (mine cost a whopping $11), you might just cut off the car-end connector and extract the pins from it to create your cable.

If your Mini already has autodim, I believe that the install will be plug-and-play.

I'm not sure if the autodim override works when the car's in reverse, but honestly won't sweat it either way.

My remote control worked fine with both mirrors - I suspect most of them in a given country are on the same frequency, but if there's any doubt, you'll want to check to make sure that the mirror you get will be compatible with your existing remote controls.

And the .pdf instructions mentioned adding a fuse in the fusebox, but my Mini (2013 R56) had no connections at that location, and worked without adding any fuses.

And of course, I did a video on the installation - I think it will answer most of the questions in this (long, old...) thread about how the plugs and pins work, cable routing, plug location and access, etc. It wasn't a really horrible job at all, but I would have loved to have had a video like mine prior to doing it! Hope it helps those still out there upgrading their Mini rearview status!