Just over 10,000 miles on my wife's 530i and it went into Steve Thomas BMW in Camarillo, California for its first service. They gave me a 2005 530i sport as a loaner. The loaner is a lot harsher than my wife's non sport. Maybe it has the tires that some of you have been complaining about? Either way, I'm glad my wife did not get the sport package. She would not have been happy with this ride.

When I start the loaner, iDrive boots up immediately with no delay, unlike my wife's car which seems to cycle up. Is this because she has nav, park distance and CPT9000 installed? Does the non nav iDrive boot faster because there is less to load, or is my wife's car too slow?

Speaking of the CPT9000, it has not been syncing with iDrive. It just says please wait. I asked them about the bluetooth upgrade and am hoping that they will do it for free because of the problem with the CPT9000 phone. I know they are updating software because they have to keep the car over the weekend because they didn't get it all loaded today.

I told them that the nav lady was skipping words as I have the software from my delivery date of July 2004. So I am definitely getting the latest software, we'll see how it goes. Other than the glitch with the CPT9000, everything has worked well so far. Of course I also metioned the lousy radio reception, but I doubt anything will change with that.

I asked the service advisor about rotating my tires. He said that BMW does not recommend it because of the 50/50 weight distribution of the car. He said that if the tires are properly inflated and the front end is properly aligned, the tires will wear evenly. I think that is silly and that because it is not part of the service, they don't want to do it, but of course I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

i believe idrive boot time is depending on what version of sw you have. please correct me if i'm wrong.

The non NAV computer is different that the one with the NAV ... it also is software dependent .. however if you have never received any updates .. you shouldn't really have any slowness.


urg. Good Luck. Hope it works out for the better - let us know :)



you didn't know that the '04 530i's were actually shipped with a perfectly balanced all wheel drive system, that wore/used front/back tires evenly? lol .. silly you ... i guess they forgot to inform you abotu that, right? ......... since when does the front & rear wear evenly, if one is the drive axle, and the other one isn't?

on the audi quattro it will wear mostly even (front/back) ... in a subaru it will not .. since subaru uses a 40/60 system if i'm not mistaken ...