DIY Carplay/Android Auto Carsara Install and Setup Tips

[SSJVegita]

Man is it safe to say that this all is just not worth it? Has anyone gotten theirs to work properly with quality sound?

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by SSJVegita

Man is it safe to say that this all is just not worth it? Has anyone gotten theirs to work properly with quality sound?

The older unit that I've listed and wrote the DIY on works well with good sound. There is a functional limit of using analog aux in, but it's like saying "you can't listen to satellite radio because the quality is so bad!" sure you can, lots of people do because they prefer the content over the absolute audio quality.

It's not clear from the last few posts how many of the older units remain, if they've run out of stock or stopped producing them might be good to try and purchase one now and just put it on a credit card in case you have issues and need to back charge it.

If you wanted to pay the premium for tech support, then you could always buy the Bimmertech unit which is substantially similar but 3x+ the cost.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by romero1990

is there a spot in the trunk hold that can be tapped into for grounding? it seems the tail light bolt isn't really connected to the chassis ground. I wonder if I can just solder to one of the tail lights bulb base or really need to bring it down to the battery.

Snaking the ground wire really was not hard, I would just say run the extra wire through the shroud. I don't think there are any great ground paths on the trunk.

[georgebmwM3]

Originally Posted by strobe89

Well it has been another week and I'm still fighting with my AIOCOAI carplay unit that looks like the original version of the Carsara kit. They've had me update the MCU and asked me the same questions 50 times. I have asked for a refund probably 5 times and the latest response was starting all over asking my year/make/model, dip settings, etc. I've come full circle now with them and I'm ultra fed up.

I was just about to buy the Carsara kit to replace mine and saw it was a new unit in the pictures. Came back to this thread and see the issues you all are having with it. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do, haha. I don't want the lower audio quality of running the aux cable and prefer to use the quadlock version.

Yeah, they are not on the level. I would stop payment and report them to Ali. I've had similar issues and went through eBay and had them refund me my money and shipping.

[netio]

Originally Posted by blk33

When you tested your unit, did you get similar results to what I did?

Yes, I was also getting electrical failure messages on the idrive with method 3.

[blk33]

New Carsara Setup
The new carsara is easy to test. Remove the screen and cable, plug the new cable in. Lift the rear of the centre console, remove iDrive cable and plug in new cables. 10 minutes to test! (You don't have to remove the heater controls as show in my image)

Powered up the screen works, shows the radio station, and the radio works. However, the iDrive controller will not work. I cannot change stations or select anything.

When an iPhone is plugged into the usb, the carplay works an appears on the screen - either wireless or cable (wireless would be good) but, I can't do anything because the iDrive doesn't work.

It got me thinking that maybe the can bus isn't working when all plugged up. The iDrive connector shows the can bus 'twisted pair' with the other 2 for power. However, the carsara connector uses a 4 wire cable 'no twists'. It is also wrapped with a 10 wire cable for NBT iDrives. The wiring loom is about 1 metre long, thus the can bus has an additional 2 metre trip mixed with 20 other wires.

I'm tempted to open the wiring loom, cut the carsara can bus pair and replace the 2 metres with a CAT 5/6 ethernet pair.
Anyone have thoughts on the process??

[blk33]

Originally Posted by netio

Yes, I was also getting electrical failure messages on the idrive with method 3.

A guy on M3Cutters got his working using method 3.
I'm going to try that today.
https://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/threa...230734/page-19

[blk33]

No wonder the unit doesn't work!
Can Bus to and from iDrive twisted green and orange pairs are just spliced to a mass of other wires.

[blk33]

It's been a busy day!
I cut and removed all the offending wires, re joined the can bus (with twists) and power cables and covered with heat shrink. Not tape.
Low and behold it all now works! Very pleased!
I'm not sure which specific step did the trick.
Second image shows nice wrapped cable.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by blk33

It's been a busy day!
I cut and removed all the offending wires, re joined the can bus (with twists) and power cables and covered with heat shrink. Not tape.
Low and behold it all now works! Very pleased!
I'm not sure which specific step did the trick.
Second image shows nice wrapped cable.

Brave man for hacking apart your harness, glad to hear it works now. I'm guessing they just poorly spliced every one of those harnesses together to make it compatible for everything and it was just too poor quality of a signal.

If you've got the new unit working and want to add any information about the software, sound quality, etc feel free to fill us in and I can update with a link to your info.

It looks like this unit might have had better audio over Aux, but also seems to highlight the value of good wiring and why so many other folks seem to have intermittent harness issues.

[blk33]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Brave man for hacking apart your harness, glad to hear it works now. I'm guessing they just poorly spliced every one of those harnesses together to make it compatible for everything and it was just too poor quality of a signal.

If you've got the new unit working and want to add any information about the software, sound quality, etc feel free to fill us in and I can update with a link to your info.

It looks like this unit might have had better audio over Aux, but also seems to highlight the value of good wiring and why so many other folks seem to have intermittent harness issues.

I’ll have a go at permanently installing over the weekend. Ill take a few photos.
A few observations:
Only have to remove screen and heater controls.
The unit doesn’t tap into the car system other than the screen.
It appears I’ll have to use the included microphone. No option to tap into the car microphone. That’s a pain.
As it doesn’t tap into anything I’ll have to use the AUX input. Another pain.
Any thoughts on how I can overcome these?

The new unit has wireless CarPlay which is a plus. Do the older ones have wireless CarPlay?

My car has the utdated phone holder in the centre console. I’m thinking of removing it and retro fitting an Inbay unit. I like your option in the lower dash, but seeing I’ll have wireless carplay the centre console suits me better.
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-inbay-pa...240000-03~iby/
You can purchase an insert as well to cover it.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25478363...53.m1438.l2649
Any thoughts?

[tdott]

Originally Posted by blk33

As it doesn’t tap into anything I’ll have to use the AUX input. Another pain.
Any thoughts on how I can overcome these?

If you are brave you can try to add the pins to the quad lock and do the coding for front aux.

[blk33]

Originally Posted by tdott

If you are brave you can try to add the pins to the quad lock and do the coding for front aux.

Any idea which are the pins?

[tdott]

Originally Posted by blk33

Any idea which are the pins?

I believe they are the same pins mentioned here. It doesn't say which is which I would double check some wiring diagrams in ISTA to be sure.


https://www.bmwrepairguide.com/bmw-a...-installation/

[drwankel]

Originally Posted by blk33

I’ll have a go at permanently installing over the weekend. Ill take a few photos.
A few observations:
Only have to remove screen and heater controls.
The unit doesn’t tap into the car system other than the screen.
It appears I’ll have to use the included microphone. No option to tap into the car microphone. That’s a pain.
As it doesn’t tap into anything I’ll have to use the AUX input. Another pain.
Any thoughts on how I can overcome these?

The new unit has wireless CarPlay which is a plus. Do the older ones have wireless CarPlay?

My car has the useless phone holder in the centre console. I’m thinking of removing it and retro fitting an Inbay unit. I like your option in the lower dash, but seeing I’ll have wireless carplay the centre console suits me better.
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-inbay-pa...240000-03~iby/
You can purchase an insert as well to cover it.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25478363...53.m1438.l2649
Any thoughts?

You can get the OEM wireless charging shelf that way you can wireless charge and do wireless carplay all at once.

[mrvedit]

Even though I have a 3-month old Carsara unit working reasonably well, I just ordered another one as I am having a few problems. Now curious what I will get. Hopefully it will just plug into the existing setup. See my post #382 in this thread for my install in a 2013 M3.
I have two problems with my Carsara.
1 - The microphone does not work. I tried both the supplied mic and the OEM one and carefully checked the wiring behind the headliner. (Not likely a phone problem as it works with factory carplay my 2017 BMWs and 2018 minivan.)
2 - The unit reboots randomly, giving me a black screen for 10 seconds and not always re-connecting automatically to my phone; sometimes I have to restart the car. Sometimes I go days without a reboot; today it was 3 times in 30 minutes. Sure, I should reseat all connectors, but I will wait for a new unit to also fix problem 1 at the same time.
Today (July 23, 2021) my Aliexpress order states an Aug 17 delivery time. I will give an update after I receive it.

[blk33]

Originally Posted by mrvedit

Even though I have a 3-month old Carsara unit working reasonably well, I just ordered another one as I am having a few problems. Now curious what I will get. Hopefully it will just plug into the existing setup.

Most likely get one like mine. All different wiring!
Mine is good now that it's working, integrates well.

[strobe89]

Update to my previous posts.

I filed a dispute with the AIOCOAI Official Store on my item. They responded with offering a refund, but I pay return shipping for their faulty product. I requested they either send me a replacement or refund + return shipping. They rejected and offered the return, but I pay return shipping again. Dispute time ran out, Aliexpress went to arbitrate. They offered 0 dollar refund stating "unit does not work correctly, invalid". I rejected, they re-offered, I rejected. They closed the case 0 dollar refund. Even with my picture and video evidence. Did they not read my 2 weeks worth of chat messages either?! Unbelievable. Guess I need to dispute via the credit card now.

On the other front here, I ordered a Carsara unit I mentioned several posts back. The pictures were still showing the older unit which is what I wanted for the better audio quality. I just received it today and as expected, they sent me the newer smaller unit with no quadlock connector and a weird joint LVDS cable. So, I can't even test swapping my LVDS cables on my old unit to see if maybe I just had a bad LVDS cable. So now I'm stuck.

If the audio is truly worse on the newer unit, I'd like to return the newer style unit since they sent me the wrong(updated) unit that doesn't match the picture of what I bought. Has anyone tested the audio on the newer unit and confirmed it isn't as good? Not really feeling like tearing everything apart to test now that the heat is back and my garage is an inferno.

I'm still in the air on keeping my older half working unit. I drove the car all last week with no CarPlay issues (other than apps acting up sometimes). It will suck though when I need to access something in iDrive and I have to tear it all apart to see the menus. I'm extremely fed up at this point. I've laid out $500 on CarPlay units and spent countless hours with my car apart trying to troubleshoot it.

[netio]

Originally Posted by blk33

Most likely get one like mine. All different wiring!
Mine is good now that it's working, integrates well.

After going back and forth with Carsara, I was able to get it to work using Method 3. They had sent me two separate firmware updates, one for the MCU and for SOC.

However, I seem to have an issue with flickering. As soon as I connect the phone using android auto (both wirelessly and via USB), the carsara UI starts flickering. I have tested this with two different phones. Are you experiencing anything similar?

[blk33]

Originally Posted by strobe89

Update to my previous posts.
If the audio is truly worse on the newer unit, I'd like to return the newer style unit since they sent me the wrong(updated) unit that doesn't match the picture of what I bought. Has anyone tested the audio on the newer unit and confirmed it isn't as good?

Mine is up a running now. Sound is via the 3.5mm plug. Sounds ok to me but I’ll have a go another day via the quad lock.

[blk33]

Originally Posted by netio

After going back and forth with Carsara, I was able to get it to work using Method 3. They had sent me two separate firmware updates, one for the MCU and for SOC.

However, I seem to have an issue with flickering. As soon as I connect the phone using android auto (both wirelessly and via USB), the carsara UI starts flickering. I have tested this with two different phones. Are you experiencing anything similar?

We’ll done getting it going!
I modified my cable to get it going - see previous post. I was unable to get it going using method 3. Too many cables to manage in the console with the NBT plugs. I haven’t noticed any flicking but haven’t had a good test yet. Mine is iPhone.

[blk33]

When I use the button on the steering wheel to activate voice command for SIRI, the command goes to BOTH the iphone and to the BMW system.
A short push activates the BMW system, a long push activates SIRI and the BMW system. Is it possible to code out BMW Voice Command?

Has anyone come across this issue, and resolved it?