hinckley

Generally speaking, I agree. I found a lot of the new tech stuff on the E60 annoying until I lived with it for a little while. Slowly I learned the "method to the E60 madness" and I now love almost all of it.

HOWEVER, if we really don't need a temp guage, why did those BMW engineers take the 5er's instrument cluster and replace the economy-meter with a temp guage on the 6er??!!!

The economy-meter has been a superfluous instrument on all of the BMWs that I've owned. To loose the temp guage for it is just plain stupid (IMHO!!).

Evenflow545

The problem with relying upon an I-Drive warning to tell you when your engine is overheating is that by the time I-Drive warns you that your engine is overheating, your engine has probably already overheated.

Temperature gauges are pretty useful in cars, actually.

saurabh

temperature gauges could be found useful, BUT, I feel that in newer cars engineers don't find the need to put such an instrument since new cars hardly overheat. I don't know about others but I have owned 2 hondas, an X5 and currently my parents own a Benz S500 and none of them have ever overheated... at technology gets better and better it surpasses our needs for a "temp gauge" there are a lot more useful tech features that we really need in our cars.

northernmonkey

I think the little white lines in the rev counter that go down to indicate the eng is up to temp is all I need to know. I can see some interest in having a gauge or display on idrive but I doubt most of us would drive around with idrive showing that screen !!

does anyone know if/when the engine overheats the check control system would display a warning, similar in function to the warning you get when the fuel reserve is low?

my last E46 coupe had a temp gauge, it was nice and funtional, but in the three yrs I owned the car all the needle did was sit in the "normal" middle position, not that exciting really

Evenflow545

Who knows what I-Drive would do, and that's the problem.

And, if BMW engineers are so smart, how about including a compass on vehiches not equipped with navagation?

Oh, wait. I forgot. I can just navagate on my own, by tracking the North Star.

speedracerF4i

I remember seeing this question poping up on the last BIMMER magazine.

Back in the 70's, the temp gauge used to correlate exactly with the actual engine temp. So, the gauge would fluctuate up and down. Well, for those who drive in the stop and go traffic, the gauge usually stayed close to the red. A lot of people thought that their cars were on verge of overheating, and flooded their dealer with complaints.

When E30 came out, they used an electronic buffer to fix the needle to the middle, and it will only rise to red if and only if there was an actual overheating. In an sense, the needle performed a "digital" duty only.

Fast forward to E60, this on-and-off needle has been replaced with an idiot light. When the engined gets to the verge of overheating, the light and warning will come up.

Now, I admit, I love the extra temp gauge, heck, I like a battery charge gauge too. But BMW has commited to simplify the dash in their new design, so we have to live with it.

P.S. My motorcycle's digital temp. gauge displays actual temperature. It will fluctuate from 176 d to 219 d before the cooling fan will kick in. It is very annoying because I find myself worrying needlessly on every stoplight that the temp will reach 219 d. Eventhough I know the fan will step in to cool it down, mentally, the rising of temp readout makes your heart race. I think BMW knows this and I am glad that they buffered the temp gauge back in the 70's

northernmonkey

speedracer4i....good post. makes it a bit clearer why BMW probably decided to ditch the gauge, i prefer the cleaner look of the dash.

maybe we can get bmw to remove the little mpg gauge needle as well...c'mon fess up even those on this site who have owned more than one bmw must admit you still cannot stopping looking at it every now and then. Do you find yourselves willing that little mpg needle to hover around 40MPG all day...just for one day...just for a change

speedracerF4i

Thanks Note,

I guess the MPG gauge is there for symetry. If BMW takes away the fuel gauge (making it digital and incorporating it into i-drive), then the MPG gauge can go. We would only be left with 2 big dial.

I still like a little busier dash for some reason.

530E60NL

I don't miss the temp gauge.. Actually I only looked at it in my old E46 to determine if my engine was hot enough to floor it.. But watertemperature isn't oiltemperature and the needle in the middle (assuming the engine is hot) was fooling us to believe we could floor it while do oil wasn't heated up yet.

I know look at the tacho and see the stripes dissapear and I use that as a reminder if the engine is hot or not.. But again, this is based on the watertemperature and not the oiltemperature.

It would be really cool to have an option in the I-Drive that shows the watertemp, oiltemp and voltage digitally if you want it. I think it would look really neat!!

Thanks for sending this wish to BMW Iceman!

saurabh

who really uses a compass on a car????

i don't think a compass is BMW's even the least of the priorities. I have seen a compass on FORD trucks (where it belongs)