Quote:
Originally Posted by smyles
Combox is combox, there're 2 or 3 flavors, but all are model independent.
BMW is retiring old cell tech and offers free replacement or $$/credits for current Assist subscribers.
And not to bash BR or any other coding/retrofit vendors, but what they charge you is knowledge/know-how that you could gain yourself, plus convenience and some kind of guarantee. It would take you quite some time to search, read, learn and practice, so it's up to person to decide whether what's their time worth to them. In terms of parts, in your case besides the combox itself I see ~$60 for main harness (which, again, is not necessary, but offers convenience), few bucks for couple of cables and ~$20 for the coding cable.
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OK, I didn't know that BMW was doing that for Assist subcribers. My BMW Assist expired over 2 years ago and I didn't bother renewing it because I never actually used it. I also learned that it would not work anymore anyway once I installed the Combox retrofit. The Combox and BMW Apps retrofit did add some cool features that my X5 didn't have but at the end of the day, I never felt like it was worth the $1000 that I spent. Also, you're definitely correct about the vendors charging you for knowledge/know-how, convenience and some kind of guarantee. I'm sure if I was 20 years younger and had more time on my hand, I wouldn't have spent even close to that much. I'm 44 now and a lot more financially stable than I was 20 years ago. However, my time is limited now so sometimes I just have to pay the cost for that knowledge/know-how and convenience.