Greetings from a newbie member. I took delivery of my first BMW a couple of weeks ago -- a new 2006 525i. I'm new to this forum, and thought that I would post my observations of this car, and mention a few minor technical glitches.

After 1000km, I am very impressed with this car. It's incredibly smooth and handles like a dream. General observations:

1) As mentioned in other places in this forum, RDS radio and MP3 don't function. This is a known problem with cars with Nav. The dealer told me that September production cars will have the new software load that fixes this problem. The software update should be available in October.

2) I've received the "High Battery Drain" error message a few times at startup, especially after parking the car overnight. This may be due to a weak charge on the battery. I took the car for a 400km road trip a couple of days ago, and haven't seen the warning since. This may also be related to the known problem documented at http://forums.e60.net/lofiversion/index.php/t14613.html.

3) After I shut down the car and remove the key, I almost always get the "key in ignition" warning chimes when I open the door. This stops after two chimes. The key is definitely not in the ignition. This problem happens with either key.

4) The red reflector inserts are now replaced with body colour, rather than black, inserts. They don't look too bad.

5) The seatbelt warning chimes occur immediately when I start the car. Since I typically start the car then put on my seatbelt this is a bit annoying. Most cars I've had wait awhile to give you the chance to put on your belt before giving you the alarm.

6) iDrive is a bit slow to respond to an input. Since it apparently runs Windows CE for the user interface, we can blame Bill Gates .

7) I use the Bluetooth telephone handsfree with my Motorola RAZR phone. Once we figured out how to pair it, it worked fine. There isn't any documentation on this in the owner's manual. I'm also quite sure the Bluetooth menu wasn't initially present. I finally found it using the "Bluetooth" voice command. The phone book entries in both the phone and on the SIM card are displayed. One small problem: the RAZR allows you to enter multiple phone numbers for the same contact, and differentiates between them with a small icon (home, office, mobile, etc). This information is not synchronized. The result is that there are multiple phone book entries for the same person, without any way of easily telling which number is which. I fixed this simply by changing the entries on my phone. Since there isn't an obvious way of plugging the phone into the 12V power outlet (I've been using one of the two in the back seat), a cradle would be nice.

8) I was a bit worried about power (especially after reading on the posts from those of you lucky enough to have a 545i). However, I think it has excellent acceleration, and more than enough power. I also like the fuel economy. On a recent roadtrip, the trip computer indicated 8L/100km at sustained 120km/hr. (That's 35 mi/gal for you Brits, and 29 mi/gal for you Americans). We'll see if it holds up.

Despite the minor glitches above, I'm extremely happy with the car and am sure these problems can be resolved.

 

The key warning chime is a known fault. The problem is the sensor for the key doesn't require the key actually be in. Just close to the steering wheel. Another case of the car being too smart for it's own good.

I had the same RAZR issue.

Nice you hear you are getting good mileage. I'm averaging about 16 MPG in my 545i

My car came with a seperate manual for bluetooth with detailed instructions on pairing a phone. took me all of 3 minutes.

 

Nice to know someone else is new to this.

Just picked up my 2006 5251 a few days ago.

You mentioned you are using a Razor phone. was that easy to pair. I did not recieve any manual with my car in regards to bluetooth. I have check many forums to see which phones are most applicable to this car.

Please let me know if you like the Razor, and who is your service.

 

The RAZR was very easy to pair, once we found the menu. I believe BMW has done quite of a bit of testing with Motorola phones. The RAZR is a GSM only phone. My service is Rogers in Canada -- which won't be of much use to you unless you're in Canada as well (your profile doesn't indicate where you live).

 

I've seen the phone manual posted on this site. I assume that I would get it with the car as well -- but no. For some reason we don't get this manual in Canada. Makes it quite tricky to pair the phone. Two of us (both computer engineers) had some trouble .

 

Thanks for the info.

My service is t mobile(USA)

I am new to this, I just updated my profile with the standard stuff.

Thanks

 

Manual doesn't say anything regarding where to setup Bluetooth phone. Just keep refereeing you to check another page or booklet, until it tells me to contact my sales person (damm, I should just do that at the beginning). It's very easy to pair once you know what screen to go to.

Unfortunately after a week of enjoying calling people using Bluetooth on RAZR in the car, I lost my RAZR, and I don't have insurance?.. :'(

 

Too bad about the phone. You can always buy a new one on E-bay .

 

The RAZR was very easy to pair, once we found the menu. I believe BMW has done quite of a bit of testing with Motorola phones. The RAZR is a GSM only phone. My service is Rogers in Canada -- which won't be of much use to you unless you're in Canada as well (your profile doesn't indicate where you live).
[/quote]

I believe Motorola provides the Bluetooth subsystem on these cars. No wonder the RAZR works well . . . http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/d...5317_23,00.html.

 

Thanks for the info, Razor it is.

My Manual refers me to separate liturature that I don't have.

I did find the instructions online.