Navigation & Audio Need Help FAST! OEM Bracket Install for Nuvi
1st Gear
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 36
Likes: 0
From: LA, California
Problem solved!
I used an alternate way of installing this, but before I describe that, here's my 2 cents.
Installing this bracket really isn't that hard. The $400 that the dealer wants to charge is totally unjustified. They'll give you a dozen reasons why not to do it yourself, then throw in a, "it might void the electrical warranty."
Another things is, this setup WILL NOT connect to your radio and mute your tunes while it tells you directions. It's just got a hot source and ground source and nothing else. It only supplies power to charge your nuvi.
The MINI instructions ARE super confusing, thanks playtowin for your words of wisdom. Here's my vernacular on how to do it the MINI way:
*Note: The harness comes with 1 female hot, 1 female ground, 1 male hot, and 1 male ground pin. It comes like this so you can make a sort of loop in the powerline. (Don't make the mistake of attaching the green pin connectors until you're ABSOLUTELY certain everything's right. I messed up tried to force the wires back out... ended up tearing 3 of the 4 pins off the wires. There's no easy fix to this, so don't make this mistake in the first place
).
1. Take off your knee bolster (unscrew 3 t-20 screws along the footwell and pull forward on the plastic to undo the 4 plastic pins). Check out jbewley's youtube video for this. You don't need to unscrew your tachometer just yet.
2. Find the 18 pin connector (should be mounted underneath the bottom of the dash - look straight up from underneath the left of the steering column).
3. Once you find it, take one hand from behind the steering column and one hand in front to get a firm grip and pull straight down HARD. You shouldn't damage anything, the plastic post is just in there really tight.
4. Unlock the male and female ends of the connection by finding a raised plastic tab on one side. Press it down and slide off another plastic piece which goes over and will undo the two ends.
5. On the male side of the two connectors, there is the main housing and another housing that fits over that - near the cable end. Pull up on an open edge and you can pry it off.
6. Now look closely at the male connector, there should be tiny numbers scribed (1,9,10,&18). Just use your common sense to figure out which pins are 17 and 18.
7. On the top of the main housing there should be two rows of 9 square holes. Use a tiny hobby flathead screwdriver (or paper clip) to press down on the first exposed metal tap, pull on the appropriate wire, press down on the second tap, and pull the wire loose. Repeat the same for the second wire.
8. DO NOT insert these wires into their green housing YET!
9. Attatch your two female pins (from your nuvi harness) to the wires you just pulled from your 18 pin connector.
10. Insert your nuvi's two male pins into the now empty 17 & 18 slots on the 18 pin connector.
11. Now do a quick test. Plug your nuvi into your unmounted bracket, turn your car on, and see if it works. If it doesn't, switch your connections, one at a time (either switch your two new nuvi male connections in the 18 pin connector or your two female nuvi connections to the 17 & 18 pins you just pulled). Make one switch, do a test. Make another switch do a test. Troubleshoot until it works like it should.
*Make CERTAIN everything is in the right place! Once the pins are inserted into the green connectors, they're LOCKED in place.
12. Once you're CERTAIN everything is in the right place, attach your green pin connectors to the male "17 & 18" pins and your nuvi's female pins. The pins should only go in one way and the connectors should slide together one way. Connect your two green connectors, and there you have it, the hard part is over.
13. Unscrew your tachometer from the steering column (2 t-30 screws).
14. Unscrew the two bottom screws off the back of your tach (normal Phillips head). Use the supplied longer screws and washers to mount your bracket.
15. Screw the tachometer back on.
16. Use the supplied zip-ties to bundle everything together to prevent rattles. You can mount the 18 pin connector back onto the plastic hole underneath the dash by aligning the plastic post and pushing HARD (but you don't have to).
17. Reattach your knee bolster.
Enjoy your nuvi.
I went through the headache of trying to install it this way, but ended up wiring it to a different power source. If you want to do it the way it's supposed to be done, that's cool. Like I said, if you're patient, it's really not that difficult. But, there are alternatives.
The nuvi harness really just has a hot, ground, and fuse so you can source it from wherever the hell you want.
For me, I previously installed all new speakers, an amp, and eq. I had the power for the amp and eq sourced straight from the battery, so I just went to my eq (which is mounted to the top of my glove compartment), split the hot and ground wires from the back and threaded new wires behind the center console to the footwell and connected the hots and grounds (the nuvi's 2 sets of wires, I stripped and twisted together to form 1 hot and 1 ground). After zip-tying everything, with the knee bolster attached, it's totally invisible.
My nuvi works great. The only thing is that it does stay on for a minute or so after the car is turned off (as does my amp & eq). It doesn't bother me, but it might be a turn off for some of you.
Hope this helps!
Installing this bracket really isn't that hard. The $400 that the dealer wants to charge is totally unjustified. They'll give you a dozen reasons why not to do it yourself, then throw in a, "it might void the electrical warranty."
Another things is, this setup WILL NOT connect to your radio and mute your tunes while it tells you directions. It's just got a hot source and ground source and nothing else. It only supplies power to charge your nuvi.
The MINI instructions ARE super confusing, thanks playtowin for your words of wisdom. Here's my vernacular on how to do it the MINI way:
*Note: The harness comes with 1 female hot, 1 female ground, 1 male hot, and 1 male ground pin. It comes like this so you can make a sort of loop in the powerline. (Don't make the mistake of attaching the green pin connectors until you're ABSOLUTELY certain everything's right. I messed up tried to force the wires back out... ended up tearing 3 of the 4 pins off the wires. There's no easy fix to this, so don't make this mistake in the first place
).1. Take off your knee bolster (unscrew 3 t-20 screws along the footwell and pull forward on the plastic to undo the 4 plastic pins). Check out jbewley's youtube video for this. You don't need to unscrew your tachometer just yet.
2. Find the 18 pin connector (should be mounted underneath the bottom of the dash - look straight up from underneath the left of the steering column).
3. Once you find it, take one hand from behind the steering column and one hand in front to get a firm grip and pull straight down HARD. You shouldn't damage anything, the plastic post is just in there really tight.
4. Unlock the male and female ends of the connection by finding a raised plastic tab on one side. Press it down and slide off another plastic piece which goes over and will undo the two ends.
5. On the male side of the two connectors, there is the main housing and another housing that fits over that - near the cable end. Pull up on an open edge and you can pry it off.
6. Now look closely at the male connector, there should be tiny numbers scribed (1,9,10,&18). Just use your common sense to figure out which pins are 17 and 18.
7. On the top of the main housing there should be two rows of 9 square holes. Use a tiny hobby flathead screwdriver (or paper clip) to press down on the first exposed metal tap, pull on the appropriate wire, press down on the second tap, and pull the wire loose. Repeat the same for the second wire.
8. DO NOT insert these wires into their green housing YET!
9. Attatch your two female pins (from your nuvi harness) to the wires you just pulled from your 18 pin connector.
10. Insert your nuvi's two male pins into the now empty 17 & 18 slots on the 18 pin connector.
11. Now do a quick test. Plug your nuvi into your unmounted bracket, turn your car on, and see if it works. If it doesn't, switch your connections, one at a time (either switch your two new nuvi male connections in the 18 pin connector or your two female nuvi connections to the 17 & 18 pins you just pulled). Make one switch, do a test. Make another switch do a test. Troubleshoot until it works like it should.
*Make CERTAIN everything is in the right place! Once the pins are inserted into the green connectors, they're LOCKED in place.
12. Once you're CERTAIN everything is in the right place, attach your green pin connectors to the male "17 & 18" pins and your nuvi's female pins. The pins should only go in one way and the connectors should slide together one way. Connect your two green connectors, and there you have it, the hard part is over.
13. Unscrew your tachometer from the steering column (2 t-30 screws).
14. Unscrew the two bottom screws off the back of your tach (normal Phillips head). Use the supplied longer screws and washers to mount your bracket.
15. Screw the tachometer back on.
16. Use the supplied zip-ties to bundle everything together to prevent rattles. You can mount the 18 pin connector back onto the plastic hole underneath the dash by aligning the plastic post and pushing HARD (but you don't have to).
17. Reattach your knee bolster.
Enjoy your nuvi.
I went through the headache of trying to install it this way, but ended up wiring it to a different power source. If you want to do it the way it's supposed to be done, that's cool. Like I said, if you're patient, it's really not that difficult. But, there are alternatives.
The nuvi harness really just has a hot, ground, and fuse so you can source it from wherever the hell you want.
For me, I previously installed all new speakers, an amp, and eq. I had the power for the amp and eq sourced straight from the battery, so I just went to my eq (which is mounted to the top of my glove compartment), split the hot and ground wires from the back and threaded new wires behind the center console to the footwell and connected the hots and grounds (the nuvi's 2 sets of wires, I stripped and twisted together to form 1 hot and 1 ground). After zip-tying everything, with the knee bolster attached, it's totally invisible.
My nuvi works great. The only thing is that it does stay on for a minute or so after the car is turned off (as does my amp & eq). It doesn't bother me, but it might be a turn off for some of you.
Hope this helps!
Neutral
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Success! The OEM Nuvi bracket is installed and working. You don't have to remove the steering wheel housing. I wasted a lot of time trying to remove it and gave up. The instructions are confusing but they are accurate.
After you remove the lower dash panel (requires T-20) and remove the two screws holding the tach (requires T-30), find the connector which is in the exact position shown in the pic from my previous post. It is held up to the underside of the dash on the left side of the steering column with a plastic post that is inserted into a hole. It's a pain to get out but if you get one hand under the dash to the back of the connector and the other next to the steering column to the front of the connector and pull it down really hard it will come free. There is enough cable to pull the connector out from behind the dash next to the steering column.
I removed the post from the connector by pushing on a tab and sliding it off. You unplug the connector socket and pin sides by rotating the handle down. Now look at the socket side. There is a housing that goes over the piece the holds the individual wires. Pry up the tab and you can slide the housing off. Then you find sockets 17 and 18 and if you take a paper clip and push on the exposed metal tab, they will slide out. Remember to mark down which color wire corresponds to the pin #.
Now just insert those contacts into the green socket housing, insert the two pins from the Nuvi harness into the green pin housing, and insert the two sockets from the Nuvi harness into positions 17 and 18 on the connector. I double checked all the connections and then plugged everything back together.
Before doing anything else I attached my Nuvi to the bracket and started the car. The Nuvi powered up. I did notice that when you turn off the car or open a door, the Nuvi stays powered on for a little while, then turns off. Maybe someone who had this installed by the dealer could say if this is normal.
Route the wire to the bracket and attach it to the back of the tach with the provided screws and washers. Remount the tach to the steering column. I tie wrapped the black box and extra Nuvi cable to the cable leading to the 18 pin connector. Don't let anything droop down or it might rattle. Then I shoved everything back in next to the steering column and pushed the post on the connector back up into the hole. All of the Nuvi wiring stays up there with it.
I hope this helps anyone else who tries to install the bracket.
- Rick
After you remove the lower dash panel (requires T-20) and remove the two screws holding the tach (requires T-30), find the connector which is in the exact position shown in the pic from my previous post. It is held up to the underside of the dash on the left side of the steering column with a plastic post that is inserted into a hole. It's a pain to get out but if you get one hand under the dash to the back of the connector and the other next to the steering column to the front of the connector and pull it down really hard it will come free. There is enough cable to pull the connector out from behind the dash next to the steering column.
I removed the post from the connector by pushing on a tab and sliding it off. You unplug the connector socket and pin sides by rotating the handle down. Now look at the socket side. There is a housing that goes over the piece the holds the individual wires. Pry up the tab and you can slide the housing off. Then you find sockets 17 and 18 and if you take a paper clip and push on the exposed metal tab, they will slide out. Remember to mark down which color wire corresponds to the pin #.
Now just insert those contacts into the green socket housing, insert the two pins from the Nuvi harness into the green pin housing, and insert the two sockets from the Nuvi harness into positions 17 and 18 on the connector. I double checked all the connections and then plugged everything back together.
Before doing anything else I attached my Nuvi to the bracket and started the car. The Nuvi powered up. I did notice that when you turn off the car or open a door, the Nuvi stays powered on for a little while, then turns off. Maybe someone who had this installed by the dealer could say if this is normal.
Route the wire to the bracket and attach it to the back of the tach with the provided screws and washers. Remount the tach to the steering column. I tie wrapped the black box and extra Nuvi cable to the cable leading to the 18 pin connector. Don't let anything droop down or it might rattle. Then I shoved everything back in next to the steering column and pushed the post on the connector back up into the hole. All of the Nuvi wiring stays up there with it.
I hope this helps anyone else who tries to install the bracket.
- Rick
This is spot on exactly what to do... Worked like a charm... wrestled with it for hours... the stock instructions blow... Read you post... done in 30 minutes...
Thanks thanks thank.
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