DIY Carplay/Android Auto Carsara Install and Setup Tips

SocalM3 wrote

@2009550iMSport

Thank you for the update and for being the brave soul to install this new unit! That's awesome to hear that the sound quality is excellent. I unfortunately had to pre-order from their website because ebay was sold out so I have to wait until Sept. From the looks of it, the only that would bother me would be how it reverts back to Carplay from the OEM CIC system after 20 seconds. Do you know what would happen if the unit does not detect your phone, would it just not come on?

2009550iMSport wrote

Just got it all installed!

While this is not an install in one of “your cars”, my car is an E60, which is very similar to E9x in regards to electronics architecture. The E9x platform’s electronics are actually based on the E60. One of the main differences is I save VO to CAS & LMA, versus CAS & FRM/NFRM.

First impressions:

- This is a NICE kit. It is so well integrated, the only way to tell it’s not OEM is the fact that you have to select CD1 as the source.

- Confirmed this box allows for wireless streaming of Apple Music at lossless 16-bit/44.1 kHz ALAC - this is a huge deal in regards to sound quality. Speaking of the devil…

- Sound quality is jaw-dropping. It’s exponentially better than Bluetooth Audio via Combox. I attribute this to the audio source being streamed over wifi, thus allowing a higher bitrate than Bluetooth can provide. The improvement over quadlok is immense. As those with top hifi sound systems, individual audio in particular, will tell you, no aux source is very good at high volumes. This is.

- The backup camera interface is far superior to Carsara’s. Sometimes when I would go into reverse with the previous box, it wouldn’t switch over to the backup camera, especially if I just started the car. This box delivers the picture instantly and there’s no hesitation in the steering guidelines.

- This box has a much faster processor. Everything works very fluidly and without lag. The Mr12Volt screen has an impressive GUI with a nice scrolling effect. I dig it.

- It mimics the CD changer to communicate with the car via MOST.
- You do not need to have a CD changer for this to work.
- You do not need to have CD changer preparation for this to work.
- You do not even need to have any MOST components for this to work. Yes, that’s right. If you do not have MOST infrastructure in your car, you can connect this box directly to the MOST port on your CIC.
- It includes a MOST splitter to connect to the back of the head unit if you do not have a CD changer or the preparation for one in the glove box.

My only complaints so far are:

- it mutes the music when in reverse. There’s no setting to override this. I contacted the manufacturer to try to get access to the “advanced settings” menu thinking it might be in there. I’m supposed to hear back on Monday.
- it’s a bit aggressive about staying in CarPlay mode. If you switch back to the iDrive interface for whatever reason, it will automatically switch back to the Mr12Volt interface after 20 seconds or so. And if you switch it back again to iDrive, it loses your place in whatever menu you were adjusting, meaning you have to click through the various menus back to where you were before. This isn’t that big of a deal, but still a bit annoying if you’re trying to adjust something like the EQ.

Cool differences in this box vs Carsara:

- All seek track buttons now control CarPlay. With the carsara box, you could only change the track playing via the steering wheel controls. With Mr12Volt, the head unit’s previous & next buttons also function.
- This box includes Bluetooth audio functionality not related to the use of CarPlay or android auto. Unlike the carsara box and it’s bare-bones interface, this has a high quality interface with scrolling graphics effects and actual functionality. It basically adds all of the things OEM combox has and more. It’s really a huge upgrade for those who don’t have combox. Huge.
- This box makes better use of the OEM CIC screen. The picture looks like a higher resolution than the carsara box.
- there is no “hold down menu button for 3 seconds to switch interfaces” with Mr12Volt. You select CD and then CD1 in the list. And to switch between the interfaces you can simply just press in the volume knob on the head unit. This switches between iDrive and Mr12Volt with zero lag.
- there is no quadlok connector on CIC versions. There is one for CCC-equipped cars. This box taps into canbus via the iDrive controller. It also gets its power from the iDrive controller. This, in my opinion, is a very smart and minimalist solution and I’m not sure why others haven’t designed their devices this way.
- The actual box itself is a smaller form factor than the Carsara. I was able to mount it affixed to the top of the driver’s cup holder housing behind the dash. The kit includes some 3M mounting tape.

I’ll admit that I’m not the easiest to please when it comes to aftermarket tech, but I really am very happy with the Mr12Volt box.

I’m lucky that i saw it when it first was released on eBay because it’s now sold out, and they hiked up the price. I paid $299 for it and now it’s going for $379. The CIC version sold out within 3 days. You can pre-order it directly on their website for a 20% discount. I would order it ASAP because they really underpriced these. I would’ve paid $600 for a kit of this quality, if not more. It won’t surprise me if the price goes up more than it already has.

It’s just wonderful. This box will put all the others out of business.



Oh, I almost forgot:

I do not know for sure if the mic splitter will work with this box. I have it wired up that way right now, but I have yet to try it out yet. The reason I’m not sure is because the 3.5mm male plug is different on this box vs carsara. The carsara plug only has one little rib on the end, this mic’s has 2. It may still work, but I’m not sure yet.

Some connection-related tips:

- make sure you really push with some force when you plug in the splitter to the iDrive controller. Mine didn’t work at first and left me very frustrated until I realized it wasn’t plugged in fully.
- my car wouldn’t recognize the device on the MOST bus at first. I know it was all hooked up correctly because I had sound, which indicates there are no breaks in the MOST loop or in the K-CAN loop. I went through a trial and error process and I’m not sure which thing I did made it finally work, but here’s what I did:
- disconnected MOST from Mr12Volt and put the MOST terminator on it.
- plugged in the diagnostic MOST connection into Mr12Volt. This may not be an option for some of you because I believe the E90 has this located in the driver’s footwell. In the E60 it’s located in the glove compartment.
- with the car on, i unplugged the other connectors from Mr12Volt but left the MOST connected. Then all of a sudden iDrive popped up with CD1 in the CD menu. Before that, everything was greyed out. It worked perfectly. I reconnected the MOST connector coming from the splitter on the head unit and put away the diagnostic MOST connector.

Pictures:

drwankel wrote

Did you have to use the included mic or were you able to leverage the OEM mic somehow?

EDIT: Missed that line about you not testing yet. Will wait.

unrulyteach wrote

How did u get lossless audio setting?

Tigamilla wrote

Mine is arriving tomorrow, thank you for the write up on the new box! I love that it's got bluetooth music out of the box, this should make things easy and make it a much more daily useable system.

Are you sure you don't need to have to the CD changer option coded to "on"?

Cyberdemon wrote

Thanks for posting. Disappointing to hear about the voice controls, I wonder if that is a setting to over-ride the default commands, or if it uses something like an iDrive push for that function instead? I do a lot of voice messaging while driving so that one is pretty high on my list.

The overall UI looks quite nicely polished though. Interesting to hear about the timeout from CIC also, don't spend much time on there but I occasionally still use the radio when my phone is in an area with bad service or I'm checking a warning.

mrvedit wrote

Thanks for trying and posting about the Mr12Volt box.
I would order it now, but as mentioned, it is currently out of stock.
I am concerned about it switching back into CarPlay automatically; I would find that unacceptable. Sound quality is unimportant to me as I rarely listen to music, mostly YouTube (talking heads), podcasts and audio books.

I currently have the "older" Carsara working to some extent - The mic does not work even after trying both the supplied mic and the stock mic; this means I have to grab my phone and talk into it for phone calls. It also randomly reboots every hour or so. I do have the audio through the Quadlock. (Never noticed that using the Quadlock disables other audio functions; guess I never use them.)

Therefore, I now also have the "new" Carsara ready to install/try and it sure is different. I'll clean up the harness as blk33 documented and perhaps cut up my existing Quadlock to install the Aux wiring as SocalM3 documented. Not happy about having to access the iDrive cable as that adds lots of disassembly.

Anyway, this is a great thread as my other DD cars and family minivan all have CarPlay and I don't care to drive without it now.

2009550iMSport wrote

Now I was told that it does not need to be coded on, but I did it anyway just to be safe. If your car doesn’t recognize the CarPlay device right away, do the trick I mentioned above about unplugging the power wires and such. Just fiddle with it and it will eventually sync up.

If you don’t want to FA_WRITE the cd changer to your VO and code CIC, you can just activate it manually in CIC’s .TRC file. I can’t remember what the exact coding line is, but just search for “cdc”. There’s only one line that includes that. Set the value to “mp3_cdc”.

I personally can’t default code my CIC or else I will lose too many settings. I have combox retrofitted and the E60 platform never offered combox, so there’s no way to default code something that was never an option on the VO. But you can enable it manually

Tigamilla wrote

Grrr - have installed it and can see the Mr 12 Volt Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signatures but it's just not appearing under the CD changer menu - kind of what you said happened. I then coded CIC for a CD changer, thinking that was the issue, but it's still not appearing. The MOST ring is complete as all the other devices work fine. I have emailed the vendor about it, but would say that for now this is a deal breaking problem (I really don't want to take everything apart again)

For prospective buyers - I would recommend waiting to see how they resolve this issue.

2009550iMSport wrote

Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe all you need to do is break the canbus connection with the ignition on. If you can easily access your iDrive controller connector, just unplug it with the car running and with CD selected in the source menu. Unplugging that connection will disrupt and restart the canbus line. Plug it back in. See if that worked, if not, do the steps I repeated above.

Not sure if this is relevant, but if none of the above stuff works, check out the welds on the iDrive connector splitter. The power and ground are the yellow and black wires on the provided splitter. Mine had some crappy job done where they crimped them together and then soldered a tiny bit on top of that.. I just redid the job with a nice soldering of my own. This may have helped, I’m not sure honestly. I was just kind of throwing a bunch of sh*t at the wall and seeing what stuck.

Cyberdemon wrote

Fwiw might be worth trying to start a dedicated thread on this one - I suspect we're going to get a lot of info that'll be useful.

Sounds like it wasn't 100% smooth going in. Unplugging the active lines with the car powered I wouldn't recommend. I fried my IDrive knob trying to diagnose something without disconnecting the battery first.

2009550iMSport wrote

5. Make sure all of the switches are set to OFF. The instructions are wrong. I think (I forgot to mention that part sorry! And if that still doesn’t work, come back to this step and switch the 2nd switch downward, BUT ONLY IF it doesn’t work in the following steps👇)

SlimE92 wrote

Where can one order the mic splitter from on its own?

Tigamilla wrote

This alone fixed it!! THANK YOU!

Would have been a painless and straightforward install if not for the dipswitches. I'll reply to this and if there is interest a new thread might be useful as pointed out previously. The seller has been communicative in responding to me on eBay although his suggestions weren't needed in the end - so that's a plus for customer service.

- The box is very very fast

- I actually had wireless Android Auto running with no drama (first time ever, as it never ran as it was supposed to on the Carsara box) but this is a little bit buggy thanks to my Huawei phone more than the box I think (it's not a fully approved wireless AA phone)

- Wired Android Auto works very well

- I used the Carsara mic splitter from my previous box and that works very well with the OEM mic - I can say "Hey Google" and dictate messages, ask it to call people, check messages etc. (although it defaults back to the stock system when asked to make call in Android Auto).

- The standalone bluetooth player is also nice and responsive

- And yes.... the sound quality is VEEEERY good! Although my version doesn't seem to have any Eq. settings?? (probably doesn't them to be fair).

Overall a very nice upgrade, I'm a happy customer despite the slightly off instructions. For those without a Combox this will blow your mind. For those with a Carsara unit - is this worth the upgrade price? If you have a high tier stock or aftermarket system and sound quality is important while using AA or Carplay, yes definitely.

drwankel wrote

That's my question as well. Definitely want to use the OEM mic and am not sure where we can get the splitter cable independently. They really ought to consider including it.