I have a 2004 545i with steptronic that was recently upgraded to 17.1. I have no idea what CIP it was on before. Problem is that since the 'upgrade' I have noticed that on acceleration from a stop the car hesitates for 0.5 to 1.0 seconds before anything happens....and overall acceleration is somewhat poor....

My major frustartion is that I have only recently changed from the previous generation 540i (also steptronic) which was awesome on acceleartion in comparison.

Since the upgarde I also notice that using the telephone via i-Drive is ceratinly a lot slower too...

PS. Just been introduced to the forum so this may have been covered somwhere... I did try a search and found some info, but nothing specific.

 

Hi Mark and welcome!

My experience is the same in my 525i. My last car (525i E39) was much more alert and aggressive than the E60. Sometimes it is hard to get the steptronic to downshift and if I press the throttle enough to downshift these times it downshifts 2 or 3 steps so the car flies away, no smoothness.

 

This is exactly the opposite of my experience. My throttle response and overall smoothness of operation has increased significantly. I first had 16.x installed, then 17.1 (to fix the Step slam problem).

 

Don't you guys love software? I'm not on 17.1 yet but want to upgrade since I hear it makes DS mode more well-behaved (i.e. doesn't run the engine to 4500 RPMs when going 30 mph to the grocery store). Sigh...

 

That's true the transmission response is very smooth after the upgrade but now the acceleration seems to be lacking in power.

 

Are you really stomping on it when this happens? Could it be DSC/DTC holding you back? If so, try disabling it and see if the lag goes away.

 

Maybe it's the throttle by wire effect (which I believe was implemented on the E60 and not the E39).

 

I believe so too. But the software control needs to be better so as not to cause these problems.

 

Throttle-by-wire always has a lag. Try this, with engine idling, depress on gas pedal quickly to see how fast it responses, you'd notice that it stumble. If you try it on cable system, you'd notice instance response. The upside of TBW is better air/fuel mixture control compare to cable throttle.

 

I had the exact same problem when I went from CIP 15.x to 16.X.

The good news is that I just got CIP 18.X and this problem has gone away entirely!

Smooth acceleration from a stop. Before there was a delay and then a lurch forward - extremely annoying.

Also, I have had zero problems so far with CIP 18.X. New Nav with perspective view, faster iDrive boot when first starting the car, and the lurch problems above are fixed. Also, others on this board have had the LED lights no longer function, trouble with the voice commands, and some AC problems - I (thankfully) have had none of these.

I would take your car back to the dealer and tell them it is unacceptable and that you need CIP 18.X asap.

-- JM.