adriana

Hi all,

Something weird happened to my car in the last month. OK so last month, the warning light on my idrive came on so I checked it out, and it said I should have the oil change in 900 km (the odometer was about 2500 km). OK, I thought. Then the next week, the idrive said I should have the oil change in 1,000 km (odometer was about 2700 or something). Weird... Then the following week, the idrive said the next oil change is due in 700 km. And then just last week, the idrive said I should change the oil in 1,000 km. Now the car has about 3,100 km. Has this happened to anyone? God I hate idrive. BMW should just give us the damn dipstick back! Oh, and did anyone change their oil after 1,500 miles (or something, I forget the exact figure), which is when the break-in period is over?

Thanks

YeeeHaa

Only use the Oil recommendation provided by idrive as a guide. The "miles before service" will change depending on how you drive (rev the engine), brake and even how often you use air con.

There are sensors all over these puppies and they are calculating your "miles to next oil change". Idrive states 19,000 miles between oil changes, if you want your puppy to be happy and live long change the oil every 11,000 miles

adriana

Awesome. I thought my idrive was acting up. The traffic condition where I live makes it impossible to maintain similar driving style every day. So the general guideline is to change the oil every 11,000 miles? Then I guess with the traffic condition here (stop and go almost every day), the interval should be reduced to maybe 8,000 miles?

Thanks for your help

tuffluck

so if you aren't in need of an oil change anytime soon, will idrive not display anything? mine just says engine oil okay, with no due date on when i should change it...

pukka

The iDrive will not give you a due date, it only gives miles remaining until the service is required. When the miles remaining goes below 1000 you the indicator on the display will turn yellow. When it goes down to zero it will turn red. Since it doesn't give you a due date its up to you to know when its been a year since your last oil change since BMW recommends doing this.

tuffluck

so what if it isn't giving me anything at the moment?

pukka

The car will only alert you if something is wrong.

If you look in the iDrive service menu you will see a list of the different services (Oil, Vehicle Inspection, Brake Pads, etc). Normally they will all be green. GREEN IS GOOD.

If you rotate the iDrive knob to scroll down the list (and click the button on each item, I think) you should see the remaining miles until the service is due.

Clear as mud yet?

tuffluck

yeah, the reason i ask though is that if you scroll over it, it says 9,000. and then when you click on it, still says 9,000 but there is no other information available. does that sound right? 9k just seemed like such a round number i thought maybe it wasn't working right...does it just show full numbers in 1k increments? thanks for the help.

pukka

Its all good - the number will decrease in large increments ( 500 or 1k miles and then 100 mile increments when you go below 1k) depending on how the sensors interpret your driving style.

When reset, I think the reading shows 13,000.

tuffluck

k, i guess that's weird to me a little since i bought the car 6k miles ago.