Hello MINI community!

I have a wiring question, hopefully someone here has had some experience with a similar project.

I am going to put in a double din radio into my R56 2007 Mini Cooper S. I am going to hide the original deck in the compartment behind the speedo and I bought a longer ribbon cable to make that possible. The deck I am going to install requests:

Green/white (BRAKE) – Used to detect the ON/OFF status of the parking brake. This lead must be connected to the power supply side of the parking brake switch. If this connection is made incorrectly or omitted, certain functions of this product will be unusable.

Pink (REVERSE) – This is connected so that the this product can detect whether the vehicle is moving forwards or backwards. Connect the pink lead to the lead whose voltage changes when the shift lever is put in reverse. Unless connected, the sensor may not detect your vehicle traveling forward/backward properly, and thus the position of your vehicle detected by the sensor may be misaligned from the actual position.

Have any of you added a radio with nab or video playback that required this as well. If so I would love your advice/experiences with what you did to reach the wiring near the parking brake.

Greg

 

I was able to receive a response about the reverse connection:

Greg, use the blue/yellow wire in the driver kick panel for your reverse lights wire. As for the parking brake wire, you will have to check the sensor by your 2007 Mini Cooper S parking brake. Hope this helps.

Do you all agree with this or are there any other ideas?

 

Is this a Pioneer unit? If so, you can just ground the parking brake wire, and it will allow you to watch video, navigate, etc while in motion. Some Pioneer units have an additional wire you have to ground as well. avic411.com is the place to look.

If it's not Pioneer, skip everything I said above.

 

its a pioneer unit, thanks much! would you agree with the reverse wire suggestion above?

 

Reverse wire blue/gray in the drivers kick panel, there is a harness with 51 pins in it the wire you need is pin 9. Keep in mind this wire is only necessary if your planning on installing a reverse camera.

Parking brake wire-blue/brown/yellow this wire can be found at the base on the parking brake or at the passenger kick panel in a junction box. Ill look for pics on this, if you need further help feel free to pm me. I do this for a living

 

Did Pioneer make changes again? Last one I installed (AVIC-D3, so it was a few years ago), needed a pin moved in the harness before it could be grounded.

Whether you ground it or install it as instructed above is up to you. I like my passengers being able to watch movies so I always bypass, but it's a personal choice.

 

thanks much! a photo[s] would be great if you happen to have one. I am going to attempt all of this soon. the ribbon cable i ordered just arrived today so i can hide the original radio unit behind the speedo.

 

I would suggest going to avic411.com and find out the proper by-pass for your unit. If it's a nav unit, you'll want it by-passed so you can enter destinations while moving. If you don't, you have to pull over, pull the parking brake, enter destination, then continue. PITA if you ask me.

For most Pioneer units, you ground the parking brake wire, and then move another wire into a different pin. It's 5min of work that will save you a lot of headache.

 

go to avic411 and find the bypass... unless u are hooking up a backup camera you do not need reverse wire

 

Unless he wants his navi to know he's backing up and not turning around. It's not a HUGE deal, but if yo can do it, why not?

 

I just installed a Pioneer unit several months ago with that same "parking brake" cut-out. They use it primarily to keep you from playing videos (iPod or DVD) while driving. I found a solution for the wiring bypass (nothing more then a relay switch) on You Tube ("pioneer radio installation bypass"), tried it and have never had a problem since. Total cost of parts was about $4. . .good luck.

 

Would this switch work? I am putting in the Pioneer AppRadio.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pioneer-Bypass-N...347146#vi-desc

 

Hey Blue!

any chance you could post a picture or two!??

thanks man!