2011 535i Retrofit HiFi

[e1tonka1]

Hi. When I searched this I mainly found aftermarket speaker upgrades. So potentially I didn’t phrase it properly.

I have a 2011 550i parts car. It has the Hifi stereo with subs under the seat, etc,

My current car is a 2011 535i with no subs, or even BT media streaming, only calls.

When I went in the trunk I saw a plethora of harnesses and wiring and several amps snd I froze lol.

Do I need ALL of it, or some of it? The speakers sound fantastic in my 535i but missing the bass from my 550i. The 550i had rear door speakers which I’ll have to leave behind I’m sure since the 535i doesn’t.

And if all that is too complicated, would swapping the head unit or screen or both to my 535i give me BT media?

Thanks!


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[DennisCooper]

Hi,

From around 2004 onwards, the audio modules became more tightly integrated with the car's systems and setup and with various reivisions over subsequent years, there's different modules/hardware than can be swapped and sometimes coded. Fast forward to the 2010/2012 generation of BMW's and onwards, and it's the same again. You've got to look at various aspects, coding, compatibility etc.

In this section, there's not much response/call for this direction of car audio as it's become more 'modules' of the car type stuff.

The best bet would be to look in the F10 section to see what other owners have done/documented so you can see/discuss what could/couldn't be done in terms of swapping modules over and having to code them possibly etc. Then you'll need to see how much of a faff it'll be perhaps to physically swap over and possibly swap looms/wiring over too.

The alternative, is to look at aftermarket equipment, things like BT audio streaming/XM Sirius functionality etc that can be integrated into the current setup. There's also various speaker upgrades with the under seat sub options which sound much better than the OEM versions too. It may well be a case of being much easier to fit/connect going this route than trying to retrofit the OEM stuff

Cheers, Dennis!

[e1tonka1]

I appreciate the response. I actually find the stereo in both my cars to sound fantastic so it hasn’t pushed me to “upgrade”.

Only reason I’m contemplating this instead of say, Bavsound, is because I own both cars so it would cost me $0 except time. But since I posted this I saw some Apple Play options that have started to make me look into aftermarket upgrades after all.


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