Okay, I am now one of the people who has done this, whereas last year I was one of the people curious about it. If you have questions about doing it, let me know, that's what club-mates are for.

It took about 75 minutes to install my kit. I have the H/K stereo upgrade, no NAV and the MFSW. I got a bluetoothed phone about 6 months ago planning for this, and then I ordered my Parrot EVO kit online for about $93 shipped and a wiring harness customized for our minis by Mike at NewMINIStuff.com which was about $190 shipped.

Not super cheap, but a less expensive option than many factor/audio showrooms will charge. It's completely invisible from within the car and if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, it plays your calls through the speaker system, and depending on your kit it can voice dial for you at the push of the button as well.

cheers
MC

 

Hello, Where did you purchase your kit?

Craig

 

Dear MC Mini,
please tell us how you like it, how it performs, and whether you'd recommend it to others.
Billie

 

I just used ebay for the kit, the merchant that had it was etronics.com.

http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?stk_code=parck3000

The harness as far as I know is customized for the Mini by newministuff.com -- someone states-side might be selling them at some point, but Mike's track record at newministuff is quite good.

 

I haven't started using the voice dialing yet, but I got a call today and it was simple as can be, quite nice. I'm particularly tired of saying 'hold on' and then having to shift between 1st-2nd-3rd while going around a corner and holding my phone in the hand with the gearshift. I figured matter of time before I slip or I'm inattentive and either drop the phone, hang up on someone, or run into something.

I've heard sound quality from the perspective of the person you're talking to can vary based on your phone and the kit, but my friend today could hear both me on the driver's side and my 4-year-old chirping from the back seat. I'm sure it sounds a bit like that speaker-phone effect. As much as I'm in the car and on the phone, I mainly wanted it to be functional, not necessarily of the quality that I'd conduct serious business with strangers you know?

A nice change overall, but I'm still getting used to it, there are a lot of options I can play with when I get time to explore them. I'll have to check back in a few weeks.

 

Glad to hear you're enjoying it

The best feature of the system is the fact that you can hide everything and just use the MFSW phone buttons