Karter16's E46 M3 Journal

[Vass 831]

I'm assuming it's these wee fellas you're talking about? I have a few spare ones, obviously stocked up at some point after that one mishap. Can chuck one in the mail for you tomorrow if you need ✌️

[Karter16 404]

11 hours ago, Vass said:

I'm assuming it's these wee fellas you're talking about? I have a few spare ones, obviously stocked up at some point after that one mishap. Can chuck one in the mail for you tomorrow if you need ✌️

That’s the one - if you wouldn’t mind that would be fantastic thank you!

 

I’ll PM you 🙂

[Karter16 404]

So yesterday I dropped round to @Cement's  house to pick up the CD stacker he kindly offered me. @Michael. was there as well, so was great to meet them both and talk BMWs and see their amazing cars 😍

And today is the final day of my summer holiday before I head back to work. This morning before it got too hot I finally got around to doing the work on the rear seat. First up I removed the black leather seats and bolsters, and then I was able to install the rear seat sound mat that arrived a couple of months ago. It fits really well and was no problem to install, at less than half the weight of the rubber/butyl one and not likely to disintegrate like the original I'm very happy with this:

You can see there are a couple of cut outs that aren't needed on the M3, presumably they are for the E46 compact or similar, but aside from that it all fits in very nicely.

I was then able to install the G7AT interior (which I've been cleaning and drying over the last week) from @M3_Power and now finally have an (almost) matching interior.

I took the covers off the headrests and put them through the washing machine (gentle cycle, no spin) and wet vac'd the bolsters, seat bench and backs.

The bolsters needed new clips at the tops, as they seem to ALL break. I ordered new ones in one of my orders last year, so had these on the shelf ready to go. Originals were black, these new ones are white, maybe they're also stronger 🤣

Then it was just a case of putting everything in, and soon it was all done! (apologies for the terrible photos and dusty car, am rebuilding a retaining wall at the moment and the clay dust gets into everything).

 

I also got to take the car for a drive today. With the work I've done on the drivers door, and the cloth rear upholstery, a good 90% of the rattles and such that were present in the car seem to be gone! I thought there were going to be a bunch still to hunt down, but appears I have one in the dash by the drivers door, and aside from that any other noises were pretty infrequent!

Now I just need to give the car a good wash!

 

Edited January 14 by Karter16

[Karter16 404]

One of the other things I did recently was to take advantage of the EQ built in to the headunit. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but figured I might as well make it as decent as possible.

To do this on a budget I took advantage of a very nifty iOS app called HouseCurve, which comes with a profile that flattens out the microphone response and makes it suitable to measure a response curve.

I used HouseCurve to take several measurements and average them out: 

 

Which gave me the default response of the system.

HouseCurve has a built in mechanism to EQ the system and generate PEQ values, however the EQ on the Xtrons is a 16 band fixed frequencies EQ, rather than full parametric, so I wasn't able to take advantage of that directly.

I could have adjusted each of the EQ bands manually to try and optimise, but I'd rather get the calculated optimum. So what I did was to export the measurements from HouseCurve and import them into REW which has a generic EQ which allows for specifying the fixed frequencies for each band. You can then optimise on just the Gain and Q values to the target curve you're seeking (I chose to use the AudioFrog curve).

This gave the following (blue = target curve, dark green = original curve, light green = optimised curve):

 

The graph of the filters looks like this:

 

I was then able to take the calculated Gain and Q values for each filter and set them in the EQ in the Xtrons:

 

And the difference is night and day. Sounds so, so much better, and such an easy thing to do to improve the end result!

Edited January 16 by Karter16

[Eagle 1662]

Always wondered about that. Probably much easier to do with all the apps around than back in the day.

[Karter16 404]

Have been slowed down a bit the last week or so with medical stuff, but got to try out the latest version of the amplifier brackets that I'm designing.

This latest version the pieces have been reinforced and weigh in at 21 grams each. For reference the CD stacker rack weighs in at 1.2kg and the BMW Amp only bracket weighs more than 550 grams according to realoem.

 

The top bracket needs a little bit more adjustment, but I think that the bottom two are finalised - they're extremely sturdy and hold the amp in the exact position the OE bracket does.

 

I'll make the *hopefully* final tweaks to the top bracket and get it printed. The mistake I made was not making quite enough space for the black bolt and washer that attaches the bracket to the body - I'll get that sorted and hopefully this little project will be done!

[Karter16 404]

One of the things that's been on my list for quite some time now is sorting out the topside reinforcement of the RACP. My car had the rear mounts reinforced with the BMW epoxy foam process in 2011 before I owned it, and the underside reinforced with epoxied plates in 2017. Since then I've put very few km on the car but deciding on the right approach for topside reinforcement has been on my mind since then. Part of the reason it's taken me so long to sort is because of all my family/kids dramas, but the other reason is that I've really been struggling to decide on the best solution in my circumstances.

I'll probably get some flak for this but I'm not really keen on weld-in solutions in general. In most welding situations I don't see how it's possible to control corrosion prevention well enough given the application, and then add in welding to thin sheet metal that has been through 20 years of stress cycles and it just doesn't appeal to me. Another reason is that welding around the rear mounts, in my case,  is complicated by the presence of the foam epoxy reinforcement. Lastly is the permanence of the change - I've seen several comments from people who bought the early version of the CMP bar, etc. who say they wished that they could use the newer, less visible, option. Likewise there's no certainty there won't be better options available in another 5 years.

In the work that I do on the car I want to keep it as close as possible to original, so that if I realise at some point in the future that I have bad taste in modifications I can restore to stock. That goes, as far as possible, for things like RACP reinforcement as well.

To this end I've ordered a variant version of the Yurkan Cages YC46W6. This is a welded single piece brace that ties both the front and rear RACP mounts to the rear shock mounts. 

This design allows for the rear seats and fold-down functionality to be maintained without interference. I don't need the fold-down feature anyway, but I certainly want to keep the rear seat unaffected (although again it's only to look nice, I only ever have a single passenger in the car, so I essentially use it as a two seater anyway.

The variant I've ordered includes an additional bar directly between the two rear shock mounts. Probably overkill, but for the small amount of extra weight I'd prefer to have a direct link between the two to help stiffen things up as much as possible. 

With this solution all I need to do is cut the top cosmetic layer of sheet metal above each of the 4 RACP mounts and bolt all the way through from the subframe to the brace. While this does require some cutting of the body, it is about as minimal as I'm going to be able to achieve while still providing for topside reinforcement. Yurkan do make a version of this brace with separate brackets for the rear shock mounts that the brace then bolts to, but given I need to cut the interior carpet, etc. either way, I decided to opt for the welded one piece option for additional stiffness. My plan with the carpets, etc. is to pick up a spare set from a wrecker to cut up and I'll put my current set unmolested on the shelf.

Once this is installed I'll be able to finally stop thinking about the RACP, and should also have the added bonus of a bit of extra stiffness in the rear.

I placed the order today and expected manufacturing time is about 20 days, so with shipping, getting lost at the East Tamaki depot, etc. I expect I'll receive this around the middle of the year.

I also ordered a replacement steering giubo recently - looking forward to getting that installed and hopefully getting rid of the slight play in the steering.

[Cement 871]

2 hours ago, Karter16 said:

a bit of extra stiffness in the rear

*snicker snicker* 🤣 Looks pretty awesome, keen to hear how it goes as I would like to add some additional piece of mind to mine at some stage also. Care to advise what the damage of product and freight was ? Does not look super freight friendly 😬

[Karter16 404]

Hahaha i wrote it, and then was going to reword it, but thought - surely no one else will pick up on that 😂

Surprisingly cheaper than I was expecting. 590 Euro shipped to Auckland! That’s unpainted, painted is an option but requires bulkier shipping (to protect the paint) which is more expensive.

[Karter16 404]

At last I got the final version of the top amp bracket sorted and Dad printed it and dropped it off yesterday. I fitted it today - all looking good!

Next up is to clean up the bay properly and then bundle up the un-needed wiring on the loom and secure it.

I also took the opportunity to re-familiarise myself with exactly how the structural foam has been done on the rear RACP mounts on my car as I start preparing for the installation of the 6 point brace when it arrives later in the year. I also checked the welds in the trunk to ensure that they're all still good - keep an eye on this just in case.

 

Edited April 13 by Karter16

[Eagle 1662]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:03 PM, Karter16 said:

In most welding situations I don't see how it's possible to control corrosion prevention well enough given the application, and then add in welding to thin sheet metal that has been through 20 years of stress cycles and it just doesn't appeal to me

Cavity wax works very well and the internal areas are pretty well sealed. 

On 4/7/2024 at 7:03 PM, Karter16 said:

I've seen several comments from people who bought the early version of the CMP bar, etc. who say they wished that they could use the newer, less visible

Usual case of buying first gen or earlier generation products, later versions are almost always improved upon. Vincebar and CMP were the only hidden options that were available when i was looking.

[Karter16 404]

Another little side project I've been working on is this:



As time goes on my collection of spare/new parts continues to increase to the point that it's challenging to keep track in a spreadsheet of what I've purchased/fitted/quantities remaining, etc. I also want to be able to more easily plan out future projects and map that back to parts I have/need to get.

To this end I've setup an inventree instance and loaded into it the complete list of part numbers for my specific VIN. Now that I've got this base setup I can go through my parts shelves, load in the quantities etc. and then I have an easy view of what I've got without having to dig through boxes. When I fit parts I can decrease the stock on hand, etc. I can also make use of some of inventree's other features to build BOMs for projects, track what parts I need to order, etc.

Is this overkill? absolutely, 100%. But it will make things a bit easier for me, plus it's cool to have a complete list of part numbers for reference.

[Cement 871]

Thats rad, I'm betting you've got the label printer and made little bin locations in the garage / under the sink / above those extra pillows in the hall cupboard nobody is sure about etc 🤣

[Karter16 404]

It's been a busy few months at work, but I've done a few tiny bits and pieces here and there - quick summary below:

Replaced the broken clamp on the negative battery cable which broke - replacement thanks to @Vass

I also noticed that when I'd installed the new gas struts on the boot, I'd installed them upside down 🤦‍♂️ so quickly sorted that:




Also realised I didn't update on adjusting the xtrons headunit to fit the dash trim properly. It turned out it needed to be adjusted a lot - more than could be achieved with a file - photo shows how far out it is:




Next up will be getting a chance to get some decent photos of the xtrons and then will write up my thoughts on it now that I've owned it for 6 months or so.

Also waiting for the Yurkan 6 point brace to arrive, it's currently somewhere between Germany and here.

Edited May 26 by Karter16

[Karter16 404]

I almost exclusively use the Xtrons headunit for CarPlay, however on the occasions that I have a need to do something else I find the default Xtrons launcher to be a pretty jarring experience. I've been having a bit of a look around at options, and have had a play around with iDrive Launcher (https://idrive.ibus-app.de/index_en.html). I know that NBT iDrive didn't come on the E46, however it certainly feels a lot less flashy and feels like it fits much better in the E46 than the standard Xtrons launcher. I think it's an acceptable compromise, given I've already compromised by putting newer technology in the E46 anyway.

I have to say I'm super-impressed with the software. It's very nicely built, fast, reliable, configurable. It's a pretty nice experience to get in the car, turn it on and see the BMW boot logo, then the iDrive launcher home menu, then have CarPlay auto-connect.

I've got more work to do to sort out the menus (I don't need the Multimedia, Navigation or ConnectedDrive items for example) but will get that sorted once I've got everything figured out and optimised.

I'm also working on mapping the second (right hand) control knob on the Xtrons unit to the navigation controls for the launcher, if I can get this figured out it means the interface can be controlled with the control knob/SWCs which would be a nice added touch.

Here's a few average iPhone photos - doesn't really do justice to the super-smooth animations/transitions, but you get the idea.

 

 

Interestingly these photos also show that I haven't quite got the RGB/luminosity of the head unit illuminated buttons right. I 100% can't tell in person, but the photos clearly show it up - will have a play to get it closer.

Edited May 26 by Karter16

[adro 1083]

Heyyyy this is SUPER cool! Thanks for sharing. 

[Karter16 404]

1 hour ago, adro said:

Heyyyy this is SUPER cool! Thanks for sharing. 

Yeah it’s great - I was stoked when I came across it - I was surprised I hadn’t heard about it before

[darren_mk 61]

Great work! , I do love this type of modernization that looks OEM + 

[Neal 544]

Took a second take , thought it was NBT 4 at first look. Would have loved something like that in my old M3.

 

[Karter16 404]

Quick project today to replace the rubber steering giubo with a solid coupler from CMP. In the last little while I've had noticeable deadness around centre. The car tracks fine on the road, but small steering inputs are annoying as you have to steer through the deadness before you can make adjustments. I thought it was likely this was the giubo, but can never tell until you try it.

Note: For those of you with LHD please note that you cannot use this item in your LHD car. LHD cars rely on the rubber giubo to account for the slight off-axis play needed in the LHD column. The RHD coupler is different and includes a universal joint, so a solid coupler like this is just fine for RHD, but a no-go for LHD. I recently saw a very sad thread on Facebook where someone asked for peoples' experience with the CMP solid coupler and it was roundly rubbished by a number of people who had used it on their LHD car. Shame for CMP as they make it clear it is an RHD part and sucks to see uninformed customers rubbish a product when they're the ones who have used it incorrectly.

Anyhow - this was a pretty quick project. I'd painted the coupler with matte black enamel as I'm not keen on the flashy purple for my build. The removal of the coupler is trivial, dismantling it and rebuilding is likewise simple so long as you take your time and make sure you prepare the mating surfaces well. All up the project took me about 3 hours to do.

From reading about others experiences of before and after with a solid coupler I was expecting a mild improvement and no additional NVH.

Mine must have been very worn as the difference between before and after was not mild. I could tell as soon as I started manoeuvring the car in the driveway. The rubber was not broken or degraded in any way, but was soft, so the solid coupler has made a massive difference. Steering play is gone and the steering feels more direct and is less spongy. As expected I don't get any unpleasant NVH - just more precise steering control.

$100 well spent.

Edited June 1 by Karter16

[Harper 548]

I'm a big fan of the CMP coupler, have it on both my E46s and painted black as well.

It's a no brainer upgrade imo. Cheaper than stock, and with essentially only upsides.

[Eagle 1662]

2 hours ago, Karter16 said:

The rubber was not broken or degraded in any way, but was soft, so the solid coupler has made a massive difference

Unlikely to happen but it would be interesting to do a back to back comparison between new rubber and solid. I put a whole new joint in mine due to milage, and as you say the old rubber was much softer than fresh one. Mounting hardware is a bit tacky for a BMW imo. 

[Karter16 404]

12 hours ago, Eagle said:

Unlikely to happen but it would be interesting to do a back to back comparison between new rubber and solid. I put a whole new joint in mine due to milage, and as you say the old rubber was much softer than fresh one. Mounting hardware is a bit tacky for a BMW imo. 

Yeah I would imagine that they would be pretty similar, I'm sure a new OE coupler would have given me much the same benefits (at more than twice the cost).

[Eagle 1662]

Yeah im guessing the cost is in the u-joints + RHD tax. Luckily they seem fairly reliable.

[Karter16 404]

I got a short period of time today to do a couple of things.

Firstly I was able to take the car for a bit of a longer drive on mixed suburban roads and motorway. Suffice to say I am very, very happy with the improvement that the solid coupler has brought. In saying that it's important to note that I'm coming from a 20 year old OE rubber coupler to a solid coupler. It's likely that much of the improvement would also be seen with a new OE coupler. Although it should be noted that Bry5on has tested new OE and solid back to back and also saw improvements beyond the OE item. Having read his description of the improvements, my experience is the same, but magnified further because my old unit was so worn out. Gone is almost all of the deadness around centre, previously when the wheel engaged the steering rack and started turning the wheels the first part of the rotation felt spongy (which will have been as the worn out rubber giubo loaded up). That is completely gone and steering now feels much more linear either side of centre.

Bry5on mentions improved granularity above, and I'm seeing exactly the same thing, it's as though the minimum amount of steering change you can make is smaller and more precise. Showing my age a bit here but it's the steering equivalent of going from SD to HD (or for the youngies it's the difference between cheap Netflix and expensive Netflix) everything is precise and feedback is better - when going from a worn coupler to solid/new the improvement is NOT subtle. Beyond maintenance/reliability work I try to focus the work I do on the car to get the best improvement to driving experience for the money I spend, and this change would easily be in my top 3 (alongside a brand-new steering wheel and the CSL bucket seats). When reading Br5yon's build thread I see that he also replaced the bushes on the lower steering column. I can't detect any undesired movement of the steering wheel laterally, but will swap them out anyway I think as they will no doubt be worn to some degree after 20 years.


The second thing that I got the chance to do is to take some vaguely decent photos of the Xtrons head unit to use in my 6 month review of the headunit.

Now that I've owned it for a decent period of time and had the chance to use it I think I'm at a point where I can make some overall observations of my experience with it. It's important to note up front that I've spent years reading all of the threads of people struggling and having issues with their Chinese-sourced headunits, and for a long time I had no intention of owning one, so when I eventually decided to give the Xtrons a go, it was not with the highest of expectations. Keep this in mind as you read my comments as my view of the unit may be affected by my initial low optimism. Secondly note that I'm very familiar with technology/computers/embedded systems/etc. so I'm very comfortable digging round in the guts of OSs and trying things out. That said I haven't had to do anything with this unit beyond some adjustment of some factory settings.


Why an Xtrons?
I was planning for a long time to install a head unit from a tier-one manufacturer of aftermarket headunits. Unfortunately they all suck (in my opinion) in particular going with such a unit I would obviously be giving up all pretence of OE looks. I was okay with giving up the OE look in exchange for reliability. Unfortunately the more I read the more it became apparent that I wasn't going to get the reliability I was after. I therefore eventually decided that I would have a go with a Chinese unit, and if it wasn't suitable, I'd then try a tier-one headunit.

So why Xtrons over Dynavin, Avin, etc?

Avin was a no-go, I've seen far too many complaints about them. Dynavin's new units have the Dynavin logo on them, have chunky buttons, and maintain the buttons on both sides layout of the original unit. In my opinion all 3 of these things were negatives. I certainly didn't want to end up with a tablet stuck to the dash, but I also felt that the layout of the Dynavin was unnecessarily dated, especially given the unit would spend most of its time in CarPlay. I was then drawn to Xtrons in particular because Obioban has one and had talked about it positively.

What unit?
I ended up choosing the IX8246BHL, because it was the highest-spec'd unit in that form factor that was available. Is that overkill for essentially running CarPlay? Yes probably, but while I have regretted having technology spec'd too low, I have never regretted having it spec'd too high, and for the comparatively small cost difference it was a no-brainer for me.

As an aside some of Xtron's other units for the E46 are marketed as having "Automotive quality components". I've seem some discussion in the past about what the difference is. I reached out to Xtrons about this and was advised that the marketing was used on older units where that was a new addition, however for newer models like the IX series that marketing was dropped, as all their units now have "Automotive quality components".

Purchasing and Shipping
I ordered the unit on a Sunday afternoon from Xtron's website, and it was shipped from Singapore, and arrived at my house in Auckland, New Zealand 3 days later. Those of you who do not live in New Zealand probably won't appreciate how impressive this is. In short purchasing and shipping was super easy - I thought I'd messed something up with the order and reached out to Xtrons support, they got back to me and answered my query within hours.

Installation
The headunit comes with a lot of wiring looms and accessories, and when you open the box I can see it easily seeming a bit overwhelming, however the documentation is good enough to understand what needs to be done, and in my case (6 CD changer, no Nav) was as simple as using the ISO connector to hook into the car wiring, plus plugging in a few accessories like the CAN interface, GPS, Antenna, etc. I opted to not wire any USB connectors, 4G, etc. as I have no use for them. Given I didn't already have nav I had to relocate the HVAC controls, etc. which is all fairly straightforward as well. I had the unit in and everything done in a couple of hours (of which at least 20% was getting the centre vents out). The unit fired right up and everything was good. I needed to do a couple of minor settings changes (set the unit to RHD as it's LHD by default, but all straightforward.

Fitment/Build Quality
I have to say seeing the unit installed in my car it looks like it fits the interior better than I was expecting it would. I'm very glad I went for the wide-screen format with the buttons underneath, I think it makes the best use of the available space and is a great balance of modernity while still fitting in to the dash (as best as a touch screen is going to in an older car like the E46). The display is excellent and the touchscreen is accurate and reliable, no missed taps or the like. It is a shame that, like all these units, the screen is glossy rather than matte, particularly when displaying darker colours it does suffer from light reflection. I might give a quality matte overlay (like 3M produce) a go at some point to see if it's an improvement). The unit dimensions are good (with one exception) and it appears to match the crease in the dash well.

The buttons are okay, at first glance they match the rest of the E46 buttons but there's a couple of things that aren't quite right. Firstly the typeface is not correct 😞 It would have been really great to see Xtrons matching this properly. Secondly the white parts of the buttons which illuminate seem to have a slight translucency to them compared to the genuine buttons, which gives them a slightly different look especially under brighter light. These things aside the buttons feel pretty good, although if you press hard on the outer buttons you can see the adjustment knobs flex slightly, presumably the board the buttons and knobs are attached to isn't supported as well as it could be. The centre button is in fact not a button, but a is a removable cover for the micro SD card. This is a pretty good solution, but of course means that the centre button doesn't illuminate, again a slight annoyance.

The control knobs actually fit the interior pretty well. The chrome seems off in isolation, but particularly in my SMG it helps tie everything together, matching the chrome on the lighter cover and the SMG shifter/ring. I'm counting this as a win. The knobs themselves aren't anything to write home about (not compared to the items on the OE stereo), but they're not awful, and they work well enough.

Other things to note. The headunit body is black plastic, that in texture matches well. In colour, if you look closely (it's more apparent in the photos than in real life) the black has a different base to the rest of the car. The Xtrons black is warmer/yellower than the OE black (which is cooler/more cyan). In practice this isn't really noticeable, but worth calling out to be aware of.

I mentioned above that the unit is well dimensioned and fits well. This is true in all regards with one exception. The clip receptacle for the dash trim that runs above the radio is simply not right. I had to significantly modify this downwards in order to fit the trim correctly without it being pushed up. Photo below shows how much it's off by.

Performance
The headunit is blindingly fast. Navigating the OS/apps is seamless, every transition is smooth, I have zero complaints about performance.

CarPlay
CarPlay support was the key reason for me making this upgrade, if it didn't work reliably then the unit would be a no-go for me. First-time I turned the unit on and connected my phone to bluetooth CarPlay (actually the ZLink app) fired up. It's so satisfying to get into the car with your phone in your pocket, and by the time you're reversing out of the garage CarPlay has fired up and you're listening to your music. 

And how has the reliability been? To begin with, from time to time (every couple of weeks) I'd encounter an issue where I'd get into the car and CarPlay simply wouldn't connect. The headunit would show my phone was connected, and my phone would show that it was connected to the headunit, but no dice. Seems like not a very good start, however at the same time I was having trouble with my phone connecting to the wired CarPlay in our MG ZS EV (exactly the same symptoms). Secondly the way to resolve the issue was to reboot my phone (nothing needed to be done on the headunit side in either car). These two things made me suspect the issue lay with iOS/my phone, and indeed this was subsequently proven true when an iOS update (can't remember what version) was released in March, and the occasional issue simultaneously stopped happening with both vehicles.

Since then CarPlay has been perfect - it works exactly as I hoped it would.

Audio Quality
I will caution my comments here by saying I am in no way an audiophile.
Audio quality, to be honest I cannot tell any particular difference between the Xtrons and the OE radio the sound that the Xtrons produces is entirely acceptable to me and I have no complaints. Noise is very low and is not noticeable. There is an issue with some IX units whereby the difference between volume level 4 and volume level 5 is larger than it should be. Xtrons are supposedly working on a fix for this, but it hasn't bothered me as this is outside of my normal range of use anyway, so isn't affecting me. I'll patch the unit when the patch is available and report back on this.

In one of my earlier posts I describe how I used HouseCurve and REW to generate DSP settings for the built-in DSP in the Xtrons unit. This resulted in a significant (as in even I could tell the improvement) improvement and I'm very pleased I went to the trouble of doing this (this isn't about the headunit so much as tuning it to the car's speakers and soundstage.

Other changes I've made
I've made some other various changes that are worth noting.

1: I loaded a custom boot logo to the unit. This boot logo is a high-res reproduction of the original boot logo on the E46 nav. I feel it's a nice additional touch to make the unit feel more OE. It's worth noting that others report seeing a "Powered by Android" logo as well. I only ever see this if I do a hard reboot of the unit, I never ever see this in day to day use. I don't know why, or what setting I might/might not have that impacts this, but worth calling out.

2: I've replaced the Xtrons launcher with iDrive Launcher which is a fantastic, well put together, piece of software which further does wonders to make the unit feel like it fits in the E46 interior.



Overall Thoughts
What are my overall thoughts on this headunit? I'm very happy I bought it! It has turned out to be significantly better than I was anticipating, and in particular has been reliable, which is absolutely key for me. Knowing what I now know I think that this unit provides the best combination of newer technology in a form factor that matches the E46 dash as well as it can. The package that Xtrons have put together works well, and some fairly simple customisations have this unit at a point where I doubt there is a better (for me) option out there.

There is no way prior to owning this unit that I would have ever recommended someone buy one of these units, now that I've owned one I would happily recommend people consider it (with all the caveats I've listed above). I look forward to updating on my ownership next year - hopefully it has continued to be a pleasant ownership experience.

I don't think I've missed anything from this review, but if I have I'll add it here.