BMW E60 / E61 Climate Control

[junglie]

Good morning,

Is there any way to change the climate control panel in an E60 / 61 from this:



to this:



Much prefer the newer look.

Thank you.

[Dannbodge]

Probably not without changes to wiring and coding.

Someone asked similar about doing it in an E90 and got told the above. I would assume it's the same for the E60/1

[Prinny]

I’d say the #1issue to find out is whether the left-most knob is mechanical or electrically controlling the air-distribution. If mechanical, I suspect you’ve no chance.

If electrical then it’s probably possible - but by the time you’ve figured it all out, you could probably have bought the newer car!

[junglie]

That’s true but this is a rare E61 530i manual with all the kit!

[Elliot2000]

It’s not a newer version- it’s different spec- the first one is single climate control and the second is dual zone climate control. It’s also completely electronic- no mechanical connections to the control.

I would guess it’s not a straight forward swap tho - but a second hand unit can’t cost too much to try- they are easy to remove

[S54Love]

It looks to me as though the newer unit has dual zone climate, whereas the first picture only has a single zone.

Not sure if that makes it more difficult to swap though.

[junglie]

In all these years I have never thought about single and dual zone climate control!

I really don’t like the aesthetics of the single zone unit - the dials look cheap and I don’t know how happy I would be looking at it during every journey; first world problems I know!

The issue is that the car is rare - a straight 6, petrol, manual, sport, estate, great spec. If it was a diesel you have more choice.

If I could change the unit then all is good otherwise it will be an unfortunate pass for me.

[Prinny]

Ah. Intriguing...
Thought you already had the car, so the punt of getting one from a scrapper & having a go is out.

As far as the wiring goes:
https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e61-530i-tou/wi...

(I’m no spark).

As far as components:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/partgrp?id=NL71-EU...

(look under control).

This suggests to me it’s possible, but how long it’d take, and how many ancilliary bits you’d need is a big unknown.

Maybe Helix402 can help? He’s the BMW man!

[PabloE61]

I have the standard climate control panel fitted to my e61 525d, but when picking up a steering wheel and sqib I managed to get the advanced climate control panel thrown in for free, I’m gonna try to fit it when i get back home from a holiday and I’ll let you know how it goes