Help identifying under-hood BMW part (pic included)

[franksta]

This is to satisfy my own curiosity.

I saw this at the pick-a-part yesterday. I didn't take this photo but found it on the web. I circled the part in question. It's a black cap, perhaps 60-75mm in diameter. I unscrewed it and it looked like an electrical connector of some type. The underside of the cap had pins sticking out and the part it was sitting on had the receptacles. It had a V shape pin in the middle so you couldn't put it on incorrectly. The wires on the receptacle side looked like they went toward the front of the car. I thought about it last night and the only thing I could come up with is some kind of airbag quick disconnect. That's probably not right. It was a 535 late '90s early '00s vintage.

 

[NutBucket]

Or a diagnostic port of some sort. My parents' old Toyota had a proprietary diag port under the hood. (long before OBD2 existed)

 

[franksta]

Or a diagnostic port of some sort. My parents' old Toyota had a proprietary diag port under the hood. (long before OBD2 existed)

That might be it.

I did an image search for BMW diagnostic port and this was one of the results. It looks like it would fit, the "keyed" center section looks right.

 

[iamwiz82]

That is the Data Link Connector, before they integrated with OBD

http://wiki.bavariantechnic.com/index.php?title=DLC_Locations

 

[SpatiallyAware]

+1, definitely diag port.

For awhile BMW had both the diag port (for using bmw software) along with an obd port for emissions. Then they moved to doing everything through the obd port.