Introduction and a Camera Question

[sunburninaz]

Hey Everyone, I'm fairly new to the group. I'm originally from Arizona (Phoenix area) and still have a house there with a daughter attending ASU. My wife accepted a job in Westlake Village, CA almost exactly a year ago. She stays here full time and I split my time between CA & AZ. Back in July, we were stopped dead at an intersection in our ES350 when a guy in a Tacoma rear-ended us at 45+ without ever hitting the brakes. Needless to say, we found ourselves in the car market again after quite a few years. After a lot of searching, I was a signature away from driving away from a dealer in a beautiful, very loaded black on black '16 X5. Until, that is, my wife saw a white on white one that she fell in love with. Guess which one we left with, lol. Unfortunately, I gave up a lot of options in the swap.

With that in mind, I've got a lot of questions about retrofits. Our "new to us" F15 doesn't have any cameras. I was really liking the surround view and front camera on the black one that I ended up passing on. After quite a bit of research, I've decided that, as much as I liked it, I don't want to spend the money for retrofitting a surround view setup and will be ordering the euro wide-angle side mirrors instead.

I do, however, want the front and rear cameras. I was looking at the Bimmertech setup when a friend came across a used OEM backup camera in excellent condition and at a great price. This is where my question lies. It is my understanding that the rear camera is basically plug and play. Is this correct and, if so, is the wiring harness already in place? I haven't been able to determine if the front camera is also PnP or if I'll need a separate module for it. Any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Doug

[RED_Y_]

Welcome to the F15 world, did you check this thread here
https://f15.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1082786

[sunburninaz]

Originally Posted by RED_Y_

Welcome to the F15 world, did you check this thread here
https://f15.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1082786

Thanks, I did. I think I looked at every post with the word camera in it before I posted my original question. And yet, I still can't seem to find one, including the one mentioned above, that has a definitive yes or no on wiring being in place for the rear camera (though one does mention a wiring harness) and whether or not I need an additional module for the front camera. Most seem to end up talking about the BimmerTech retrofit kit.

[richiiuk]

Hi
I retro'd the reversing camera and the wiring is not present, you need the camera, tailgate switch assembly to suit camera, and the camera loom, which runs to the rear fusebox, head unit and Body domain Controller ECU. Then you will need to add the camera ecu (Icam2 for rear only) to the VO. This will then need flashing. I used Esys with the full Psdz files. Its quite a time consuming job. If you intend to fit also the front camera then you need the surround view ecu, the rear camera for the surround system is different and all the wiring is different too so cant help you with that. Its a pain in the bum to do and i only did the rear.

[mrfochon]

For the front camera, which I do not have and was also very interested to retrofit, you will need:
- camera unit
- wires
- module that controls the camera
- drill your bumper to place the camera
- code your car to handle module: I am not a coding expert. Letting others like macmaverickk shine in
Most of the above is available on eBay.

That's the min I remember.