Just got my 530 and showed it to friends. Everyone commented there was no temp or oil pressure gage. I too wish to know these things and not rely on an idiot light or should I say idiot icon?
I am seeking suggestions on sensor placement, gage placement and type.
I favor analog gages. I might even add voltage, again analog, to tell me the state of the battery well before the computer says there is a problem such as when cold cranking a few years down the line. Even though BMW 'takes care of the car' for a few years, I still don't want the inconvenience of a possibly predictable breakdown. I have never seen a car that has electronics to show the state of health of the critical components although the hype (from the other car manufacturers ) makes it look that way. I am not intimidated by the idrive system either. I would enjoy MORE displayable information like those three signals listed earlier and even pay to add them as options. It would only be a little computer firmware add-on I am sure.
Apparently there is an engine temperature reading that gets sent out via telematics when the car is in trouble. How might one access that ?

 

what we need is for someone to reverse engineer the software and write a display program for the idrive !

it would be nice to display " virtual guages" on there....bit like the nissan skyline or toyota prius.

don't imagine it will happen though.

 

On the older 5 series cars, analog guages displaying the oil temp, pressure and battery voltage, could be installed for around $300 or so. I'm sure something similar could be done on the e60.

If something like overheating were to arise though, a warning chime would more than likely alert you.

But yeah, measurements on Idrive would be great.

 

Well, as for the engine temp, there is a variable redline (kind of like the M3 and M5) with little white ticks on the tachometer letting you know what the "effective" redline is. You could very easily deduce the operating temperature of the engine by the variable redline. If it starts going down, then you know either the car is getting too cold or too hot.

Modern water temp gauges are of little use anyway, except to warn you of extremes in the operating temperature. They are buffered in some way as to be pegged to the middle of the gauge while the temp is somewhere in the normal range.

As to oil pressure, can't comment on that. I know that my 2001 330i doesn't have anything but a fuel gauge, an engine temp gauge, and the "fun meter."

I would _love_ it if BMW would put in a virtual gauge feature into iDrive, where you could get voltage, oil and water temp, oil pressure, etc. I can't imagine that it would be difficult to do. Maybe if enough people called BMWNA to complain, it could get on a "TODO" list?

-MrB