studavis

Part of the collateral damage of transporting children is the occasional liquid spill. My lovely son knocked over a small root beer onto my center console, and the result was root beer leaked into the various low points of the car, including the iDrive nobby thing. This was last Sunday. Today, I drove the car to work and noticed that the knob thing was very hard to use, and tonight, it made a little crunchy noise when I was plugging an address in for my wife. Questions for the experts, will BMW replace this under warranty, or will the root beer spillage negate it? If I have to replace it, how much coin am I going to have to deduct from my lovely son's 529 program? Last question, how hard is it to replace?

Thanks...built to spill lovely boy thanks you as well, because his future is dependent on what happens.

mhs525

It sounds like the console/idrive needs to be dissasembled and cleaned. Maybe a few new pieces as well. It's not a BMW fault so I think you will have to pay...

Dealer shop rates are what now? $100/hr or more... plus parts if the dried up root beer got into anything electronic???

You should know the rules with kids "NO DRINKS IN THE CAR"

JSpira

From what I?ve seen, the controller is one unit and has to be replaced as such.

Unless it dries out on its own, it?s not replaceable.

Given the circumstances, it won?t be covered by warranty of course. Sticky controllers are generally not the type of thing that would be unless the sticky isn?t, well, really sticky.

studavis

thanks for the help, it goes in tuesday for service. going to do my best to deny, deny, deny....

JSpira

Good luck and let us know.

I am nothing if not religious about the ,,no beverages except bottled water`` in the car rule. This is a good example of why it?s important to have such rules in place, to preclude very expensive iDrive controller replacements if nothing else.

cornersandsills

replacing the i drive controler is a relativly easy job to do, just time consuming as the entire middle consol needs to come out, in england the i drive costs about ?230 if you need help on changing it i.e instructions let me know and ill help were i can,

studavis

I appreciate the offer cornersandsills, but I have no desire to do this myself. I would have a few years ago, but about the only thing I do any more that is mechanically inclined is change the batteries on my remote control. I am going to wager though, metaphorically, that through my superior intelligence, and ability to make great, sound and reasoned arguments (with green paper printed with portraits of dead people), I will get this done under warranty. I will keep you updated. I really appreciate the help. I would offer one small point of disagreement, it is impossible to keep the no drinking in the car rule in effect with a 5 year old, and a three year old. The stereo just won?t produce enough db?s to mask the sound from the back.

Presley348

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Yea man, I know it is a bad thing that happened to your idrive controller, but as we both know kids will be kids, and are Gods gift to us and are precious and cannot be replaced!!! But our BMW's and their idrives can!!!

I admire you for taking a bold stand and letting your kids be kids and drink their drinks in your BMW. I wish mine was 1 or 5 again and drinking and spilling things in my BMW now days, but she is 21 in college and don't have time for old Dad anymore, and got her mind else where, not TCB with passing her college subjects and trying for a 3.5 GPA, but instead on boys and dating!! (LOL)

Sincerely,


R. Eddie Presley

JSpira

Do you mean they will yell if they cannot drink soda? They don't like water I take it? (My parents never had soda in the house and the only fizzy think I recall drinking - which I still like to this day - is an Apfelschorle. Occasionally, I was allowed an Orangina.)

studavis

Good God no. The big negative to the soda, my wife never allows them to drink anything but milk, water, or juice. No high fructose corn syrup, no additional sugar, no caffeine. The root beer incident occurred on the way home from Sun Valley, when we stopped at McDonalds. Mom was with the other two still, and it was just Dad, baby sitter, and the son. I made a special stop to appease said baby sitter and son, and paid the price.