Kev525

All,

Maybe I can help clear this debate up now. I posted the topic below back in May and finally got around to booking my baby in for the dealer to have a look.

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=25661

Over the last few months I'd been having a number of intermittent "glitches" with the I-drive not booting up, together with some false alams such as Brake warning messages and seatbelt warnings, so I booked her in yesterday for the dealer to take a look before the 3yr warranty expires in December this year.

I also mentioned the fact that the air conditioning "Auto" button did absolutely nothing as far as I could tell and had expected it to control the Fan speed when necessary. (I'd read on this forum that a software update should fix the problem).

To the best of my knowledge the software version on my car has not been touched since the day it was built in week 44 2003. (I bought the car when it was 22 months old and have had it for the last 12 months).

When I spoke to the SA yesterday morning as I was booking the car in, he said that the Auto button was not supposed to control the fan speed as it only controlled the temperature regulation (or something along those lines) to which I resigned myself to the fact that it was not going to be fixed with any software upgrade.

How wrong I was! When I collected the car lunchtime today, I was told that they had reprogrammed a number of modules, so off I went reasonably satisfied that the "glitches" had hopefully been sorted. As I drove away I noticed the auto button was "off". More out of reaction than anything I dabbed the button to the "on" position and imagine my surprise when the blower went into overdrive and nearly blew my hair off. (It was quite sunny in Cardiff today and the car was warm inside with the temperature knob set to minimum).

In the past, I've had to turn the blower control all the way around to maximum to get anything like that sort of airflow, and even then I never managed to get it to blow as fast and hard as it did today.

When I got back to work I rang the dealer and spoke to the SA who had served me to let him know the s/w update had apparently sorted it and to ask what exactly they had done, because I knew you guys would want to know what the fix was.

All he could tell me is that they had upgraded the software to SIP 38.1 and that he believed the update itself had not sorted the fan in isolation as they had also updated / reprogrammed the Heater Control Module (HKA?) which was what probably did the trick.

Maybe you guys who have had s/w updates havn't had the Heater Control Module updated and that's why we have some people with later software but no automatic fan speed control.

The dealer who sorted my car is Rydale BMW in Cardiff (South Wales - UK) if that's any help.

stu

Wow a 2 year old thread !

Good info though Kev.

I had a similar experience and my auto fan now works correctly . I wonder if there are any early 04/05 E60 owners on this forum who don't have the auto fan speed working correctly yet ?

sforshaw

Well mine's at the dealer tomorrow

520d SE therefore standard air-con, 10/05 build so should be pretty well specced with the latest software, but the A/C is a complete nightmare!

My E39 had fantastic air-con - set the temp and more or less ignore. In 5 years of ownership I think I only adjusted the temp by around +/- half a degree C. The small manual dial for the centre vents was ideal (and easy!) to tweek the air temp at face level (the stuff you're breathing of course) and I had absolutely no critiscism of the whole setup.

But the E60 .......... did they leave a student to design the air-con It has a complete mind of it's own that can at best (being polite!) be described as unpredictable! In Auto mode, which is where the e39 system remained for 5 years, the system is noisy and doesn't put the correct temp air to the right places in the car. Last week I experienced cold air blasting to my feet, very little of anything from the centre vents, and VERY hot air from the dash top (extreme ends) vents - too hot to hold a hand near them, not that you would when driving anyway! But the air coming from the top vents is the air that I'm breathing, so I'm driving in a cold car with stifflingly uncomfy air to breath! I always thought hot air rises so hot air being forced into the upper area of the car would seem ludicrous!

I spent a week or so recently driving my wife's Freelander (she was doing some longish trips so she used the BM) and for once I actually appreciated one big aspect of the Landrover - MANUAL A/C Turn the temp up and it does what you ask, turn the fan up and just the same! I only realised just how bad the E60 A/C was when I got the car back!!!!

The centre vent control on the E60 is ludicrous - fiddly through the i-Drive and having only 3 settings:
1. VERY hot,
2. VERY cold,
3. Somewhere in between but probably not the temp you want,

So I've now resided to the fact that it might as well not exist. I've selected the "2" position and closed down all the vents, leaving just the footwell and other vents to ventilate the car. It's an improvement, but not ideal!
I'm convinced that there's something amiss with the system (hence booking into the dealer) because surely BMW could not build such a poor A/C! Buying the E60 was a no-brainer after the experience of the E39, but I'm tied in for another 3 years and it's going to be painful! 1 year into ownership and I'm already wishing I'd looked at the alternatives - a shame because everything else about he car is brilliant, economy, power (2.0d is fine in the real world of UK roads ), comfort, basically everything except the A/C which is a disaster.

I'm now at the point of dropping it on the dealer before it's a year old so that my problems are registered on their system - I'll get back with the results.

Stu.

E60Sim

Why didn't BMW make the advanced AC as standard ??!! That was how it was in the E39

We never touch the climate control, we just leave it like this:



Works like a charm!

sforshaw

Good question! Only they must know :thumbsdown:

Stu.