My experience is it depends on the Luck of the Draw. I had 3 updates so far and the first one took 4 tries (1st three tries failed) 4th time it took 18 hours. The second update it took 2 hours. The third update was all day (they had the car all day during work). My wifes 07 X5 took 3 days to update.

 

Well, after the windshield was fixed, they installed AUX port and told me they would need the car overnight. Well overnight turned into 3 days. No problem, the loaner was nice (2008 3-series). But when I picked up the car and took it home, I plugged in my Zune and iDrive kept rebooting. I also tried MP3 CDs and that didn't work either. So, I took it back to the dealer today, it turns out the AUX install wires were reversed and the MP3 option wasn't enabled. They gave me a loaner (2007 3-series) and sent me on my way, about 2 hors later I get a call that all is working, this time I left them an MP3 CD and my Zune to test. When I got there, I tested it myself and all is well.

So like most of you have said, updating software all depends on who knows what.

Thanks again,

Jim

 

our new 525 had a software update as a "recall" in order to prevent possible injector wear (wierd!). It took over 4hrs - and resets a few things like custom settings and auto-behaviour I think. I haven't seen any posts anywhere about this recall...