[JimD]

I was worried about damaging my console when I did this the first time so I priced it on RealOEM and found it was about $100. I figured I could risk that so I proceeded to install the drink holder you get with iDrive. Nothing was significantly damaged so I did it again in my wife's 1 (and automatic). If you are careful, I think this should be your outcome. Plastic pry bars will help a little but basically you just have to be careful and not apply too much brute force.

Germans definitely do not want their electrical connect to jiggle lose. That is a good thing except when you want to take them apart. You have to figure out what the mechanism is that prevents unplugging for each connector. It is generally a plastic notch on the outside of one piece snapping into a recess on the other side or some kind of loop around. The connector for the instruments is really clever in having the loop around lever jack the connections into position.

Jim