Hello,
I am looking at getting my first MINI ever, an '06 Astro Black Cooper S. It has most of everything I wanted except no multi function steering wheel, which also means no cruise control either. My question is, has anyone on here retrofitted one? I am pretty sure I can do the labor as I have been working on cars for years and I work as a helicopter mechanic , but I am pretty sure I would still need to go to the dealer for coding after. Is this correct? I have done some searches online, but I am finding all sorts of answers from "no it can't be done", to "yeah, and it only takes an hour to do". Can someone please shed some light on this for me?! According to RealOEM I can get the retrofit kit for $336 or $1007 including a new wheel (which I assume I wouldn't need to go that route). Also since these cars are getting older there are a lot of ways to get these parts used for a lot cheaper than this obviously. Finally, would I have cruise after this, or would I need to get a cruise control module or whatever to make that work too.

Normally, I would just walk away and find another car, but I am having a really hard time finding one with the options I am looking for and this one is pretty close other than this.

 

Ive been looking into the same thing for my 2 spoke wheel. The BMW instructions show just adding the parts. Since most everything is electrical i imagine its just plug and play/pray.

I have not found anything that says you have to have the features turned on in the ECU but it may be different on the 3 spoke.

 

This might be better asked in the electrical subforum for 1st Gens. I'm pretty sure if the car doesn't have cruise control already, there are some (potentially expensive) extra bits needed.