About 18 months ago I purchased my latest BMW from Sytner Sheffield, a 2013 E70 X5 xDrive 40d. I was quite excited to find that it had a phone cradle installed in the center console. Of course, since the car was built, mobile technology has come on leaps and bounds and I found that it was not possible to get an adapter for my mobile phone, which meant that the cradle just became something that was filling up space in the storage area and got in the way.
I figured it should be possible to remove the cradle so I took a quick trip to Sytner’s parts department to asked about obtaining a blanking plate. The team were really helpful and were able to find the relevant part and order it for me. Don’t forget that there is a discount on parts when you show your BMW Car Club GB membership card.
The part number for the blanking plate is 51 16 9 115 083.
The removal of the cradle is quite a simple job and took me around 45 minutes.
The first thing to do is to remove the carpet trim that runs down the side of the center console on the driver’s side. The is a single T20 Torx screw by the pedals. Remove the screw and gently, but firmly, pull the trim away from the tunnel. There are two push connectors holding it in. When these have been pulled away simply pull the panel towards the front of the car as there are two slide clips holding the back.
Once the front panel is off, the back panel needs to come out as well. This one simply slides forward and I found it easier to do this from the rear seats and push it forward as trying to pull it was quite tricky with the drivers seat being in the way.
Once the back panel is out there are two connectors which need to be disconnected. You will see the cable coming from the cradle inside which is fixed to the tunnel by a couple of clips. Unclip the cable and follow the cable to find the two connectors and disconnect them. There is a large black one which pulls away from the plastic support and a smaller connector with a purple connector. The trick to disconnecting the purple connector is to use a small flat blade screw driver to lift the purple cover and then press down on the clip beneath to release the clip holding the two sides together.
After disconnecting the wires, we can now look to remove the phone cradle. The cradle is held in place by two T20 Torx screws which are hidden under the cradle, lift up the cradle and unscrew. The cradle will pull away easily and it is then a case of feeding through the connectors to allow the cradle to be removed.
When the cradle has been removed you can refit the carpet panels. The blanking plate simply pushes in to place. Here is a before and after:
This is a simple at-home job that does not take long to do and gives you back a lot of storage in the center console.
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