virgil

It would be nice if these extra guages, etc, could be on an Info screen that gets displayed in place of the standard I-Drive menu.

In fact, it would be fantastic if the entire display console was one large LCD panel, that could be customised ... you could choose what gets displayed and where. Select from futuristic digital - contemporary - retro styling. Choose colours (for those of you who suffer from colour blindness) ... etc.

Someone should forward this idea to the boys in Germany !!!

Cheers

virgil.

nigxdoof

Well, the ACM module can display the battery reading and the oil temp in the idrive.

Its not customizable like you say, but it has those readings in there. Take a look at the link I posted in my earlier posts in this thread.

ktlocklear

Why not just get a A-pilar 3 gauge, gauge pod...and put some electric 2 1/16" gauges in them; water temp, oil pressure, wide band AF (for the turbo guy's)......not sure if pods exsist for the e60 though.....universal ones are out there though. Not sure if I would put one in mine..but that would be an option

UUronL

I don't think it's really needed. Per the manual, you're not supposed to sit and let the car warm up, you drive it immediately, but gently. This means it's not necessary to watch a gauge.



As far as an overheating scenario, one or more things will happen.

1) A coolant leak or some amount of evaporated coolant should generate an alert about low coolant

2) In the case of a bad water pump, the floorboards will have coolant in them - a dead giveaway (in addition to a low coolant alert)

3) In the case of a broken thermostat or other system blockage, the car will overheat (visibly) - just stop driving and get a tow. A true temp gauge wouldn't buy you much more time if any.

Dr Dave

i hear what your saying mate, but thats not why we need guages...its the same as why you need a rev counter..to have a visual check on whats happening, ALL performance cars have these rudeamentry guages, and 99% of other cars have a water temp guage. (why was this???)
we know our cars will throw up a warning...but only when something has allready happened, with a "guage"...much like a fuel guage, you can monoter progress and prevent things like overheating from happening (do you want to be wrapped in cotton wool?) i certainly dont, and i love being part of the driving process, or i would hop on a bus

as your point 3, goes...a temp guage will give you huge amounts of warning, when it strays off the norm...you know something is amiss.
engine/water temp is critical to your engine, why leave it too chance
why not omit the fuel guage also, and just have a low fuel warning (say 50 miles to empty..../) its almost the same thing...we dont "need" it, but it helps and aids our driving and awareness.

just my thoughts, why change something that has worked for 100 years

ps: i love guages

ponnu

I could see my car warning me if the outside temperature goes below 37 deg F, I expect the same for engine/water temp to warn us at a regular interval if it exceeds the normal operating temp.

Dr Dave

just another thought for those who say our current warning message is enough...........

the paramiters must be set high on our cars or it would throw up an "overheating" light/message every so often, so this leads me to think that it must be set at the max almost..ie: when its "definatly" overheating...and then its too late if your on the motorway doing 100 (70 your honour ) and would result in stopping on the hard shoulder waiting for recovery.

my "guage" would allow me to "limp" to a service area, because of the amount of warning it gives (or in some cases speed up, as more air flow can cool engines down up to a point, i could also put heaters on to channel hot water flow away from the engine)
fortunatly diesel engines dont seem to suffer overheating problems due to there cool running engines and fuel.

corgidog

The mpg gauge is useless, why BMW doesn't replace it with a temperature or turbo pressure gauge is beyond me.

andy535xi

Actually there IS something you can do about the temperature gauge. BMW sells a "sports steering wheel" covered in sweade with LED lights at 12oclock position. It has programable steering wheel buttons and a feature that tell you if the engine is up to its operating temperature. Its $1,400.

Another option, although I don't know if this will work, is to swap the tach out from an X6 (which has the oil temp gauge), and hopefully it hooks up to some kind of sensor. I've been thinking about this, but I'm not sure if it will work, any ideas?

obrien2631

Yeah, I agree. Not sure why they put that there.