Well it has been about three weeks since I received my 4771, but I
have just gotten around to installing it this weekend into my 2005
Mini Cooper S. Between being out of the country and not getting the
adapter from Becker (I am still missing one for the iBus, but I know
Tony will come through), it has been aggravating waiting.
For many of you, the Cooper is this cute economy car that you see
driving around town without much of a connection to BMW. In
reality, while the Mini Cooper doesn't look at all like a BMW, it
shares a ton of parts with it's older siblings. This is very true
in the audio area, where we actually have the same headunits from
the 3-series, and a similiar iBus, with similiar wire locations.
When I purchased my car, my goal was to try to retain as much of
stock look as I could. I did not purchase a Nav unit on this car
(this is my second Mini, the first had the Nav unit) to save some
money. The BMW factory unit is quite costly. I knew that I still
wanted a nav unit, so after a lot of research I decided to try my
luck with the 4771. It met all my criteria and then some. It match
the interior well, the lighting was the exact same hue as the
Mini's, it had a european style nav unit, it came with a British
voice, and most importantly it worked on the iBus system. For many
of you the iBus compatibility was a means to access your BMW
changer. For me it was the continued use of my steering wheel
controls. Well after almost 8 hours of work (hey it took me a
while, there weren't any directions for a Mini anywhere, so I had to
adapt everything and do a lot of trial and error),

Note from Rachel: Here are some of the oem MINI installation kit pdfs:
• Cars with Radio Wave Only
• Cars with Radio Boost Only

the majority of
the unit is in place. The nav unit is all setup, calibrated and
working great. The radio and CD player are all good as well. I
still do not have the steering wheel controls, but this is due to
the fact that Becker didn't ship me any kind of adapter for the slot
C on the TP, which is the connectors for the iBus. At this point, I
think I am the only Mini with the BMW traffic pro. Becker did make
the 6550 unit for the Mini, but I have not been able to find that
one yet, so for now I will settle on the 4771. Overall I am very
pleased with the unit. I love the Euro layout of it, the color, and
nav unit. Most Americans balk at the fact that it doesn't have a
22" plasma hi-def, color screen, in 3-D views, but I don't think
they are all that necessary. While I like some of the techy
features on those, you are really meant to drive and keep your eyes
on the road. From that standpoint the TP is perfect.
I will write up a more detailed installation for the Website, but I
wanted to just post my project so far.