A mod pro.. wow!!

I was afraid to pull that little clip (with the wires attached) out of the microphone, so he did that!

 

I just did this at the same time I hardwired my Valentine 1. Easy-peasy.

 

Thx for the info. I did this in about 5 minutes just by fishing the wire across. This would be pretty impossible if you have the alarm system installed though.

 

So that is why I could not do this. I had a sensor of some sort in there that I could not get out.

 

Well, I'm not saying the job could not be done, just that one could not fish the wire with the alarm sensor up there. In this case, the inner panel would need to be removed as shown by the OP.

 

I just did this and took about five minutes. I agree that you don't need to pull the whole piece down, just the cover and fish it through with your fingers.

As this was clearly meant to be installed on either side, I am really surprised that they did not flip it at point of entry.

 

I was going crazy trying to figure out how you guys were using your fingers to fish the mic across....I thought I was doing something wrong or you guys had rubber fingers...turns out I do have the factory alarm. Mystery solved!

 

Thanks for the tip. l'll be doing this when the MCC shows up in Oct.

 

Some other people in ohter threads have wondered how easy this really is to do. So i have added a You Tube video to show how easy it is to do.

This video is only for cars with out the Alarm System. For car with the alarm system there are a few extra steps to get the wire moved. I will hopefully make a video of that tomorrow.

 

schatzy, Thank you!! I just finished doing this and it makes a big difference!

 

Maybe my fingers are too big, but I needed to remove the inner cover to fish the wire through. Still not a problem. I used a T-20 torx driver for the two screws.

I'm not convinced that this improvement isn't a placebo affect. Even though you move the microphone 4.4 inches, I measure it as only being 2 inches closer to my mouth. The orientation of the microphone is unchanged, right? It's still facing straight down.

 

I am glad that this is working for everyone.

 

I just did the mic mod on my '09 and have a few comments. It took me about 20 minutes because of two things.

- The small connector was a bit hard to pull out. I inserted a knife blade under the top of it to lift the small plastic section of the mic housing up a just bit so that it would come out easier. This allows that small bump on the little connector to not hit the mics housing when pulling it out.

- Maybe the mic wires on my mini were shorted than that shown in the video. I fed the wire straight across to come out the other side but there was only about 1 inch handing out. This made it really short and trickier to put back together. I thought there would be too much stress on the wire and connector. Rather, I needed to push the wire straight up (from its original position) into the area behind the "inner panel" covers, then feed it to the hole on the drivers side. Lots of loose wiring to work with this way. Since my fingers would never fit up there to do this. I used a "grabbing" tool to reach up there, grab the wire, and pull it out the drivers side hole. An improvised tool with a "hook" on the end would probably work just as well.

 

Thanks to the video, I did the swap on my '09 today. After fishing the wire across through the holes, there still was not enough wire to reach to the other side. So I took the two screws out and moved it that way.

However, the black plastic the six tabs hook onto ended up floating free in the opening. Once this happens, there's really no way to get the tabs to go back in. So I still screwed it back down, and snapped the cover back on. It still seems tight up against the headliner so I think I will still be ok.

Anyone else that took the screws off have trouble getting the tabs to snap back in?

 

Shatzy- Thanks so much for this. You've been incredibly helpful with all these BT issues! Haven't attemted it yet, but will give it a try tonight and post my results.

 

Just switched my 09 Clubman! l held onto the wire and pulled ever so lightly to get the extra 1 inch. I inserted the mic first, which was a little hard before l used the knife to pull the tab out, then plugged it in Took about 5 min, which was 3 hours faster then the lights and 45 mins faster then the V1 Before l cahnged it l called my house and left a message and then tonight driving back home at the same spot l'll call again a see if it's better and that would tell me if it's the placebo effect or not. Thanks for the tip!

 

[QUOTE]The small connector was a bit hard to pull out. I inserted a knife blade under the top of it to lift the small plastic section of the mic housing up a just bit so that it would come out easier. This allows that small bump on the little connector to not hit the mics housing when pulling it out.[QUOTE]

This is the problem that I'm having. I've watch Shatzy's video closely and the mic wire connector seems to come out of the mic with little resistance. I have pulled hard, to the point where I was afraid of breaking something. ...nothing comes loose. It appears there is a small piece of plastic which clips it to the housing but even pushing it in and pulling out doesn't seem to help. I was thinking it was an 09 change but it appears some others have had success.

What looked like a simple fix has me frustrated.

 

If you have a pair of needle nose pliers crimp down, lightly, on the black piece so that the pliers are going right to left and make it snug with the mic piece. Now, and be careful, move the pliers like your swiveling it useing the mic piece a the pendulum lightly and it should come out. You really can't break anything on the black plug because there is nothing to break. Now the answer to what l think the question was. Getting the mic out of the housing. That small plastic clip goes front to back and needs to move out so that the male piece on the mic can get past it. Look at the other side and towards the front you'll see a groove that it slides into and then the black clips into a groove as well. For me l ahd the hareder time with not enough wire and getting it into the second clip. Take your time

 

Shatzy and Chefghryll, thanks so much for all the help. Shatzy, your video made me comfortable enough to try this mod but once I got started, I ran into my initial problem of the wiring too snug to pull out. The needle nose plier suggestion with rocking it back and forth gently, worked perfectly.

The second problem I encountered was that my wiring wasn't long enough to feed through via Shatzy's video. Fortunately I have long, skinny fingers, so I pushed the wiring up into the housing and brought it through the left(driver's) side with some hemostats.

Everything is back together and works well so far. I'll give it a work out tomorrow on my way to work!

The video rocks, Shatz!!! With this new addition to the thread, it should definitely be made a sticky.

 

I am having the same problem, I get it in but as soon as I flip a few of the switches the cover comes loose. I need to work on it again, my wife is annoyed by it a bit.

 

I will probably try to work on it some more this weekend too. I'm thinking that I can some type of "arched" tool to go in the holes that you use to fish the wire through to get at the plastic ring the tabs snap into. Then hold the plastic ring tight against the headliner and get the snaps to seat. Then can put the cover back on.

If I get the snaps back in I'll sleep better.

 

I worked on it tonight, I found the plastic ring that is attached headliner, has come a bit loose in the front, I will need to make an appointment to get it fixed. It looks like the it is glued or pressure fit to the headliner. So when I push the main plastic piece against it does not hold against the headliner.

 

My plastic ring is also definitely loose -- that's what I meant by saying it now free floats up in the headliner space. I didn't look at it too closely to see if it looked like it was glued on or some type of force fit into opening. I still think if there is some way of holding it in place while one pushes the piece back up there with the tabs, then once the tabs snap in it will all be ok. But this might be easier said than done.

I was just in a hurry on Sunday to get it back together that once the outer cover snapped back in and appeared to be snug that I thought knowing that the plastic ring was floating up there might be ok. But now that I know that someone else had the plastic ring come loose I'm going to see if I can't fix it.

Besides, it seems like the dealer might not consider it a warranty repair... But if you do have your dealer fix it, let me know if you get dinged for it.

 

The plastic ring yo are talking about is not glued to the headliner (at least in my car) as this would make it almost impossible to change the headliner or repair the module there if needed.

I found on mine that if i pulled the lower section out (the one with the screws) and brought the upper holder back down to wehre is was supposed to be, then put the lower section in rear side first and then press up on the front side (closest to window) last. Put the screws back in and the carefully place the cover back on.

 

Thanks all for the great info ..
I made the mic move and the wife says it sounds better.....
Also note you can look up at the vents and see which side the mic is mounted before removing the cover....
One thing I have found that if I just sit in the car not running, ignition on, the voice command can't seem to hear and/or understand my commands. But if I'm driving no problem voice command works fine... go figure... And this often happens when I'm sitting in the driveway trying to demo the system to someone