I bought a 2009 S and love it. Had an '03 but wanted an upgrade. This one has a phone button on the radio and also on the steering wheel (along with a voice command button). But the buttons don't seem to do anything. Does that mean its not equipped with this feature? Thanks for any advice you can provide.

 

Yeah, you get the buttons, but without the installed feature they won't do anything.

 

Can it be added? Guessing its not cheap but I might consider it. Have a hands free unit that works through the radio but its a bit of a hassle.

 

That's one of those things like trying to add factory navigation after the car has been made. I believe the costs for parts alone is in the $1200+ neighborhood, and that's without labor.

You're likely better off just getting a clean 3rd party bluetooh car connection kit you can wire in, but than means still no functioning steering wheel buttons, unfortunately.

 

That is not true at all. You can add Bluetooth to the R56 there is a retrofit. I think it costs around $450.
There is this one but, this isn't the one you want.
http://www.shopminiusa.com/PRODUCT/6...CenterId=46778
Here is the article with the bulletin. This is what you want.
http://www.motoringfile.com/2009/10/...-retrofit-kit/

OaklandMINI not to get on you but everything can be retrofitted. I t might be expensive but it is not impossible. I have personal expierence retrofitting MFSW into mine.

 

Actually you can go third party and use the steering wheel buttons. There is more than one solution, but the one that I am familiar with was a combination of a Parrot bluetooth kit along with a custom plug and play wire harness from newministuff.com

The harness isn't cheap only because you have to pay the exchange rate from the UK and shipping costs. But it is a lot cheaper than trying to retrofit all the parts needed to go OEM. Mikey over at newministuff.com knows what he is doing and mine worked great.

How it works is that you remove the speedo/radio from the dash enough to unplug the existing harness and plug it into the new harness. The bluetooth kit plugs into this harness and the harness plugs into the radio. Now the buttons will work to activate your phone thru the radio.

If you search on this site for "mfsw" (multi-function steering wheel), or "bluetooth" etc you should find more information.


In my new car I decided not to go thru all that work yet again. While it was really nice to hit the button and answer a call, i also would have to close the sunroof or put up the windows for the call to be really ok. Instead I opted for a bluetooth headset from Jawbone.http://jawbone.com/headsets/era/overview It costs about $130 and works amazing. Very comfortable. I prefer it over the hands free steering wheel setup I did have in the last car. I don't have to close the windows in order to take a call.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

 

Porthos, not sure how that's different from anything I said.
I said the same thing. I just thought the cost was $1200+ plus labor for OEM, but looks like the Mini retrofit kit is $700+ labor and not $1200. My mistake there.

Looks like I was dead wrong about any third party kit not being about to use the steering wheel buttons. Thanks for the info, 05r50. Wasn't aware of that at all. That's new info to me, and very cool. I didn't know, and I apologize for this mistake. My bad on that.

 

http://www.bramanautoparts.com/prod/...ace_67293.aspx
If I understand it right you need the top 2.
2.75hr labor at $115/hr= $316
$550 for parts
So your are looking at a smooth install with MINI parts which are warrantied for 2 years to include labor for $866 before taxes. Meh tempting I should have done it when I did MFSW.

 

Not bad, but not cheap.
Sorry, your link showed $700 MSRP without labor.

Still a nice option to have and thanks for the info/link.

 

did you check to see if bluetooth is enabled in the radio settings?

i ordered my countryman with bluetooth, it came turned off and the buttons did not work until i turned bluetooth on

scott

 

Bmwr6060

I've looked through the menu and there's no phone option. Is there somewhere else I should check? The menu is new to me as my old mini didn't have it. Thanks to all for your posts.

 

on my 2012, press MENU button, then PHONE softkey to turn on bluetooth

then the steering wheel buttons work

scott