Phoenix Gold Phorum

Picked up a 2000 BMW 328i today. As you can imagine my head is buzzing with car audio ideas. anyone done an install on one of these? What are my options?

man, you are going to hate running wires . The panels are so tight you have to pull on the hard enough that you are sure they are going to break. Stick an rca under the carpet and suddenly it will not snap into the siderails, which means the kick panels will not fit, ect.... Just getting cables around the dash is hard as they do not leave much room for you....

I have nothing fond to remember about the bimmers I worked on.

ttocs wrote:man, you are going to hate running wires . The panels are so tight you have to pull on the hard enough that you are sure they are going to break. Stick an rca under the carpet and suddenly it will not snap into the siderails, which means the kick panels will not fit, ect.... Just getting cables around the dash is hard as they do not leave much room for you....

I have nothing fond to remember about the bimmers I worked on.

not fun to work on, but fun to drive, especially on rainy days with the back end trying to overtake you

ttocs wrote:man, you are going to hate running wires . The panels are so tight you have to pull on the hard enough that you are sure they are going to break. Stick an rca under the carpet and suddenly it will not snap into the siderails, which means the kick panels will not fit, ect.... Just getting cables around the dash is hard as they do not leave much room for you....

I have nothing fond to remember about the bimmers I worked on.

My plan so far is to go kinda simple. I'm going to go with 2-way MbQuart Premium comps in the front being driven by my Audison VRX 2.150. Will have small Quart rear fill coax speakers in the back doors playing VERY low. I will use a Soundstream D60 to run those. I'll use 1 12" sub in the trunk in a nice sealed enclosure. I'll add a beauty board for the sub so it looks neat. oh yeh... to run the sub I'll be using an Art Series A300 (mono 4ohm). And the head unit will most likely be an alpine 7998. Pretty simple but should sound clean. I'll probably use a small amount of Damplifier Pro for the doors and trunk/Trunklid. And for the first time I will be utilizing my Phoenix Gold basscube.

Any thoughts?

Hehehe, I still have my wires running out in the open, scared to break anything... There is a thread on e46fanatics on a double din install relocating the climate control. The trunk is pretty sealed up too, my car didn't have the ski access... At least the battery is at the rear with thick cables... I'd really like to see your install when you're done. Another good thing, the cabin is very quiet...

I have the imprint piece for the 7998, let me know if you need it.

i have done a whole mess of these.

cables are easy!

rca's go under the center console and stright back, under the back seat, then to the driver side rear seat bolster.


battery is in the trunk so power wire is a breeze.

ground near the batter on the factory ground point

also, ground the head unit at that point too or i can almost promise you will get alt whine


i love working on bmw's they are tricky at first, but after you figure the trick out it makes perfect sense.





also, under no circumstances remove the door sill's or rear sail panels. they will never go on properly again.

Bfowler wrote: also, under no circumstances remove the door sill's or rear sail panels. they will never go on properly again.

they do, but they're a real PITA
haven't worked on any other car that were so damn hard to put the sill back on

is it a manual?

love those cars.

let me know if you need any help with motor/modding/maintenance.


how many miles?

also...if you do any mods....get a m3 limited slip first. best investment you can make.

most bmw panels don't get pulled up they move forward to come off.
I agree with itchi fun as hell to drive but if it break you better have some $$$ put aside
I had a 90 e30, 94 e36 my buddy has a 1999 e46 and i had 2 e90
the e90 were crap cars when they drove it was fun and but looked great

is it 5 speed or auto? be very very carful if auto they have a bad problem the gear box just stops work with no problems seconds before.once it happens the car will not move so your stuck. The deal will fix it for about 800 us but they can do in 3 days again
there was a law suite in the us on this as bmw know it was a problem but didn't want to do anything about. you miht want to look up some of that info
new transmisions are like 3500 us
I really hope you got the 5 speed
very nice car IMO
jl made some cool stealth box for those car
I find them easy to work on but I have owned 5 now. also watch out for the inner rear wheel bearing they get damaged very easy more so when the car is lowered. power window motor go easy in cold areas but other than that the car are better than the new ones

kg1961 wrote:is it 5 speed or auto? be very very carful if auto they have a bad problem the gear box just stops work with no problems seconds before.once it happens the car will not move so your stuck. The deal will fix it for about 800 us but they can do in 3 days again
there was a law suite in the us on this as bmw know it was a problem but didn't want to do anything about. you miht want to look up some of that info
new transmisions are like 3500 us
I really hope you got the 5 speed
very nice car IMO
jl made some cool stealth box for those car
I find them easy to work on but I have owned 5 now. also watch out for the inner rear wheel bearing they get damaged very easy more so when the car is lowered. power window motor go easy in cold areas but other than that the car are better than the new ones

Damn! Thanks for making me nervous It's an Auto w/triptronic. Has 78k. I will look up the lawsuit information. The car was a one owner and looks and drives fantastic. I was going to buy a manual but with the hills here in seattle area it sucks. I will be carting around my son in the back so an Auto works better for me. hopefully I don't get any issues with it. The car is very quick and corners on rails. Thanks for all the info everyone! Glad to know that I can pull the cables through the center to save headaches! I'm a little worried about the bass not making it through to the cabin due to it being sealed up so well. One thing I do appreciate is the quiet cabin. Should be nice for a SQ install. I was really appreciating the heated seats to! Nice! This has the cold weather package as well as the sport package. I plan on putting staggered 19" wheels on it... most likely silver, not chrome. Thanks again guys! I'll post some pics when I get started.

Nice car. The doors on our old 528i were a pain in the rump.

man....hope you don't have to throw any rocks at guys breaking in again! Lol! Hope you get good alarm system....or park this baby inside a garage.....good luck with your install.

sorry Shock was when i was looking at a nice 2005 330c and than found out they might have problems. so I bought new and that another long story
let just say bmw pick me up a 2008 acura tl @ .60% intrest

Very nice car dude! If they depreciated half as bad as Saabs did I would be driving one too

Nice car man! I've worked on a lot of these over the years and look forward to it each an everytime. The doors can be a real challenge to get any good midbass ( you'll see why when you pull the panels off) They require you to make a good mounting baffle. I just posted two builds, both 3 series, in the install thread. Maybe it'll give you some ideas who knows Oh.. and make sure to have your Torx set handy with this ride

http://phoenixphorum.com/post185517.html#185517

http://phoenixphorum.com/02-bmw-325xi-vt17263.html

Nice car! Sounds like a decent system also. Good to see your not going with the trend these days of these shiny 3000 watt sub amps. About these automatic transmissions not sure about BMW but I have an 2004 Honda Accord with 130k and the transmission just took a dump and Honda wants 4400.00 to replace it. Plus its a known problem with hondas of all years. Going back to good old american made and something with a clutch................Matthew

yea ive got a 95 325i convertible that i just wanted some basic tunes in and the power wire to the head unit is dead i was just gonna run another wire but it's so not fun. it already has some pioneer coxail's that i might just hook a big boy phoenix gold amp to to watch them catch fire or maybe just a zx450 just to keep them warm.

Hi all! Here's an updated pic after I got a tint job done, clear corners and side markers, and added 19" staggered wheels and tires. Almost ready to start my install... just waiting to get a basscube remote made. I think the car's lookin pretty slick.

How is it to drive on rubber bands?

you "added" those wheels.... meaning you "chose" those wheels

(i have to attach my shifty slimy since tom still hasn't added it.)



interesting, all this time i thought you *Weren't* puerto rican drug dealer.


the rest is looking pretty good though.

(i changed my avatar in response to your wheels too)

Looking good man. Love those cars.

Thanks for the compliments and the criticizations. I love the wheels. As for the rubber band thing... these things ride as smooth as the original 16s. The M3 came with 19" wheels so this isn't too far out of character. To the stinky nose on my wheels... I love them. 8.5" on the front and 9.5" on the back. I chose these from over 30 pair I was considering. The chrome lip is deep and really sets them off. The handling has dramatically increased. This thing takes corners like it's on rails. I'm pretty happy so far.

And for the "Puerto Rican Drug Dealer" comment... not cool. My girl in Puerto Rican and my son is half. A pretty racist bullshit thing to say. Merry Christmas to you by the way.