Two questions. Not ti, but E36 related. Please help.

[318ti_Portugal]

Hello...

How are you doing?
I have to questions. They are not ti related, but are about an E36 325i that a friend of mine owns.
Here's the thing.
His 325i has manual climate control and a check control.

His climate control:


His check control only displays the time, date and does the check control.

He was thinking about swapping his parts with these.
18 button board computer:


Automatic climate control:


He doesn't understand that much about cars and I don't know other E36 very well, so is this a plug and play swap?
What do you think?

Regards! and Thanks!

[J!m]

I do not believe that to be 'plug and play'; however, I think you have a better chance with the climate control module than you have with the OBC.

I would open the dash, or just compare the connectors on the back side of the two climate control modules. If they appear the same, with similar pin-outs (wires in the same locations on the connectors of both modules) I think it would be safe to give it a try. It is also likely that the connectors are the same, but two extra wires may be present in the automatic module (power and ground) for the additional electronics of the automatic module. These wires (along with a fuse on the power line) may have to be added. Check it over carefully, and see what it looks like.

BMW did not have one wiring harness for all options with just what you ordered 'plugged in' like older American cars often did. BMW makes each harness for the specific options of the specific car they go into, so 'extra' wires for plugging in options are just not there.

Good luck!

[Tyler]

You could always go onto bimmerforums.com and ask over there,they might have some input on this.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Tyler

You could always go onto bimmerforums.com and ask over there,they might have some input on this.

If they allowed searching then I know there's a few writeups on how to do both. Unfortunately searching is easier said than done these days.

[John Firestone]

Originally Posted by J!m

I do not believe that to be 'plug and play'; however, I think you have a better chance with the climate control module than you have with the OBC.

Actually, your chances are quite the opposite. It is much easier to retrofit an OBC than convert an IHKR to an IHKA. You can get most of the OBC working by adding a connector shell, moving two wires and adding around five wires. The digital A/C, on the other hand, is a next generation design and requires much more in the way of parts and labor.