Rearview Mirror w/ Compass?

[Variante Alta]

Hi folks - I am looking at a few more minor upgrades to my awesome F15 35d. I miss the LED compass within the rearview mirror from previous cars. I use the dash one but the mirror one seems so much more natural and functional. I've done some searching and cannot find a thread discussing such a mod. On one hand seems like it should be easy, but did BMW produce any F series cars with Homelink, autodim, front facing camera/ sensor and built in compass? If so, I'd think it's a fairly straightforward swap (maybe coding?).

Anyone with experience with this one? I'm trying to find more things to improve on this car and am running out . Cheers.

[ooshnoo]

My F32 has the compass in the mirror, but not my X5. Really surprised me when I got the X5 that it's missing, and I think it sucks.

[Qsilver7]

I don’t miss the compass in the mirror at all...I must be an "easy-adapter" since my e53 X5 does have the compass in the rearview mirror. There’s a compass built into the nav map if you have CIC/NBT versions of iDrive…so if you always have the nav map up…you can always tell what direction is north. There are TWO arrows in the nav map…one always shows north plus there’s the arrow that shows your direction of travel. And if you don't always have the nav map displayed...you can program one of the 1-8 buttons to split the screen to display the nav map on one side and keep something else you like displayed on the other.

You can also select 3 different map views which also lets you know your direction of travel…the map views are:

• Map always facing north
• Map in direction of travel
• Perspective view (birds eye view)

If you have the nav map always facing north…then the arrow that shows you your direction of travel also lets you know if your going north/east/south/west based on your position on the nav map.

If you have the map set in direction of travel…then you compare your arrow’s position to the arrow in the display that shows which way is north.

Perspective view’s is the same as above…you compare the arrow that shows your direction of travel to the arrow that always shows north.


In the 1st image below...you can see that the owner split the Nav screen into two views...the map on the left is using the "map in direction of travel" and the map on the right is using "map always facing north" (see info highlighted in RED box). So when you look at the arrow on the map (big blue arrow is pointing at it) that shows the vehicle's location on the map...you can see that this vehicle is traveling in a SOUTHWARD direction.

In the 2nd image below you can see that the map is in the perspective view. The info highlighted in the RED box shows where due NORTH is...and the BLUE arrows is pointing at the direction of travel...which indicates that the driver is headed in a north-eastern direction.

[blue dragon]

There is also a compass in the cluster if you cycle through the B/C button

[Qsilver7]

Ditto blue dragon...there's that compass (not sure if it requires coding to appear in the scroll through list)...and I believe there's also a compass if you pull up xDrive Status in iDrive:

{compass in xDrive Status}


{compass in instrument cluster by pressing BC button on turn stalk}

[crystalworks]

I hadn't noticed that the F15 didn't have a compass mirror. As mentioned there are a lot of compass display options... but I do like that the E53, E61, and E70 had compass mirrors. But since I hadn't noticed it in the F15, maybe I don't use it as much as I thought I did?

[lonestar22]

the mirrors are interchangeable with other models. find the one with the features you want and swap it out. its pretty simple.

[Variante Alta]

Thanks everyone for the great thoughts and info on all the options. I use the dashboard option currently and do like it except I wish it would auto default to that setting instead of having to be told to display each time…I understand that may be learned by the car with persistence. The nav map of course has the North arrow which is also helpful and unobtrusive. I find I at times have to think just a little longer than I'd like with my eyes off the road (particularly being used to and loving heads up displays) but it's workable. 'Quick' post above provides a great deal of info - thanks for that indeed. I still miss the ease and quickness of the rear view display…from the previous post it may luckily be an easy swap out across BMW models although I'm a little concerned about ensuring the front facing sensor is the same as what's in the X5. There are some fairly inexpensive used options around so I'll likely give it a try and see how it goes.

If I can find the correct part number for the correct alternate mirror I will post it here for others.

[Variante Alta]

Update: I ordered a mirror on eBay from a 2018 433i F33 with part number 51166821263 for $30. It has the same options (EC / LED / GTO) as my F15 plus the Compass option. Replacing it was a breeze - I warmed the cowling behind the original mirror with a hair dryer as it’s cold in the garage, separated the cowling gently starting at the roof liner and working down with a spudger tool and it came away easily. Next I grasped the mirror and gently but firmly wiggled it downwards (along the plane of the windshield) until the metal clasp slid off the mount - again easy. Don’t try to pull the mirror away from the windshield as stuff will likely break. Disconnected the wiring harness and plugged in the replacement mirror. I turned on the car to verify it worked (including the compass indicator) - all good. Slid the new mirror up along the windshield plane until the metal clasp was seated correctly - just needed a firm but not aggressive motion. I replaced the cowling starting from the bottom this time and working up to the headliner, again easy but worth taking your time to avoid breaking the tabs.

I then reprogrammed the two garage door opener buttons (bit of a drag) and voila! OEM mirror with compass. 2/10 difficulty - 30 minutes max. I’ll recalibrate the mirror compass now by driving in a circle slowly until it’s happy (see helpful instructions below).

(Now maybe I should clean out my garage )

[Qsilver7]

Great! Thanks for the follow up.

[imr3n]

thanks, I didn't know this was even possible good to know.

[MJBradley1967]

It's funny, all the searching I do and almost all roads lead back here.

My 2022 mirror still has the little pin-hole, but nothing in there to activate or control any kind of compass.

I was able to set up a home page with my media & a compass, but adding another widget changes the compass to more of a bar dial. Not a big departure, since I usually have the display in full media mode unless I have the map up.

Nothing in the instrument cluster on mine, another fail on the US models most likely.

I miss the simple N or SE or whatever right at the top of the dash cluster from my previous 4 Grand Cherokees, but even the one from the image above would be nice. Such a simple thing that could be left alone, yet BMW feels the need to delete.

[sukhk527]

New winter project. Nicely done!