Kinda long...but i figured id share it with everyone...im happy with the final product...
My ipod Connection:
Before I give instructions on how to connect an ipod, I want to say that this will not work on all cars. My car has an aftermarket Alpine head unit, and I had performed the ‘relocated lighter mod’. This makes my car easier to connect an ipod to (at least for the way I did this). At least seeing what I did may give you some ideas.
There are several ways to ipod a BMW. Some of them are:
A) Messing around with the CD changer wiring harness if your car was pre-wired for a trunk changer. I have read instructions for how to do this online, but the wiring was just too messy and ghetto for my taste.
B) FM transmitter is used to transmit your ipod music through an unused FM radio station. There are several transmitters you can buy, but with my experience, the quality just isn’t good enough for my taste. I purchased a Belkin FM transmitter for $30, and the quality was horrible. There was static constantly (IE: loud static where you couldn’t hear the music at all). You had to hold the ipod and transmitter is just the right way to get it to play clearly. Even wearing my aluminum foil antennae hat didn’t help.
C) Cassette adapter plugs into your mini jack, and on the other end of a wire is a cassette tape. You turn your radio on like you are playing a tape. Quality is good, but it looks ghetto. I don’t have a cassette player anyway.
D) Auxiliary input is the ideal way to connect an mp3 player. This provides a direct connection from the ipod headphone jack to the back of the head unit. This results in excellent quality, and is easier than searching around finding an empty radio station.
That said, I chose to use the auxiliary input jack on the back of my Alpine head unit. If you have a recently purchased aftermarket head unit, chances are you probably have an auxiliary input jack in the back of it. I purchased my Alpine head unit about 2 ½ years ago, and I didn’t even know it had an auxiliary input jack until I checked the model number with Crutchfield about 2 weeks ago.
This is the auxiliary input cable I purchased at Crutchfield:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-sU9Ew9x...0&I=500KCM123B Here are other auxiliary input adapters at Crutchfield:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-fK4UNbA...up.asp?g=50900 As you can see, the cable I purchased has one end that is a mini jack that connects to the ipod. Other models may have an input with two RCA female ends. This means you would have to buy another adapter. This one goes from a mini jack to an RCA plug:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-sU9Ew9x...150&I=119AICIP This way, you would have an adapter in the head unit that splits into an RCA input, which plugs into an RCA splitter in the ipod.
Now once you figure out which materials you need, you want to order them. You may have to wait a few days for shipping.
Before you do any wiring, you want to make a plan of attack. I chose to wire my cable from the head unit through the right side behind the glove compartment on the passenger side, down by the console, and up into the new compartment where my ashtray and lighter used to be. Be sure to remove the glove compartment and interior trim before you start pulling your head unit out, or else you will have your head unit dangling by wires as you try and figure out what parts need to come off before you can start threading wires.
<ipod1>
You obviously need to remove your head unit so you can hook up the input cable. I won’t describe how my head unit comes out because you probably don’t have the exact same one, so you will have to be an engineer and figure it out yourself.
For my car, I removed the glove compartment and related interior trim. It is held in by four screws in the corners of the glove compartment (visible when the door is open). There are various other screws in the knee bolsters that you can easily remove with a phillips screwdriver. There is one on the side that you can only see if you open the door, so don’t forget that one.
<ipod2>
Once the screws are removed, you can slide the glove compartment out. There are two wiring harnessed connected to the glove compartment light that you can disconnect so you can set the trim aside. Once the trim is removed, you can see the area behind your head unit.
Remove your head unit if you haven’t already and plug in the input cable. Reach behind the head unit from the glove compartment space, and pull the cable out so it is hanging where the passenger’s feet would be. I just took the mini jack end of the cable and pushed it under the center console, since plastic is a nice material that is flexible and still strong! I grabbed the end and pulled it through the bottom of the compartment. Since an ashtray used to be in that space, there were several holes to reach through (though I covered them up with a felt carpet), so this was the easiest place to thread a wire to. This left me with a mini jack plug in my console compartment, and the wire completely hidden under the console and glove compartment. Depending on how much wire you want outside of the console, you can bury the excess under the console so it isn’t visible.
<ipod3>
Put your head unit back in.
Put the glove compartment back in, connect the two wiring harnesses, and screw in the bolster!
Plug in your ipod, set your head unit to the auxiliary input setting, and bling bling!
Now comes the engineer in me. Leaving my ipod lying around in a compartment wasn’t very cool. I decided to make a nice mounting bracket for it. It wasn’t very hard for me to do. I have an ipod mini, which comes with a belt clip. Playing with the idea of the belt clip, I made a mounted sleeve that the ipod clips too. It holds the ipod mini upright so I can see it, and it is easily accessible. In the bottom of my compartment, there was a tiny hole where the ashtray was screwed in. Using this hole as the mounting anchor, I broke out my Steel Tec Erector Set! This is the little children’s toy with little steel nuts bolts, and flat bars with holes in them!
I used a long flat bar to mount to the ashtray hole. It runs flat along the floor to the corner closest to the driver. Using an angled connector, another flat piece runs up at an angle, flat against the wall of the compartment. Using pliers to bend the vertical flat piece, it bends back towards the head unit a little bit. Using a sleeve made out of cardboard and duct tape*, bolt another flat piece to the back of the sleeve. The tricky part is to not put the bolts in the middle of the sleeve. If you do that, the ends of the screws might scratch the back of the ipod clip. Instead, the bolts need to go on the left side of the sleeve so it clears the belt clip. Bolt one flat piece to the back of the sleeve, and bolt that flat piece to the bent vertical piece. Make sure you use a bolt with a flat head, because if the head sticks up, it will cause the ipod to sit uneven in the sleeve. This gives me a suspended ipod mount made from a Steel Tec Erector Set!
<ipod4>
It is hard to understand from words, so look at all the pictures to see how I connected the pieces!
Finished product:
<ipod5>
As said above, this particular method might not work for you if you haven’t done a ‘relocated lighter mod’, but hopefully it will help you think of some ideas!
*I used cardboard and duct tape to come up with the original design because it is easier to work with. Once I got the correct dimensions, I made a real sleeve out of polystyrene. I used a heat rod to soften the polystyrene so I could bend it, and let it cool in place. Cardboard and duct tape works fine, but it just looks ghetto.
How I ipoded my 1995 318ti 
Linear Mode
