I do have the BMW panel, although I don't have a radio below it. (I have a custom blanking panel in place of the radio panel with engine management control that takes up less room behind the panel than a radio would and in any event that is not creating the fitment problem.)
The problem that I had was that the part itself was too large behind the panel. Maybe at some point they changed the size of the part without changing the part number? Not sure, but I seem to have a line on the right part with both Don (thanks Don!) and with my AC guy here in SF.
Don clued me in to the fact that the bezel is different for the temp controller and the fan controller. I mean, come on!
BTW if anyone is interested my wife, who is in the ad biz and very handy with graphics, is going to create stickers with original AC control text in the right font/size. It's pretty easy to print these once we have mock ups so I will be back on here asking folks if they want them before I do the print run. Or maybe I'll just get a bunch of them.
-John