tonyb635

I know I'm not overheating because nothing changes even when the car has sat overnight so it can't be hot. My dashes are fixed and do not move and are always there. I'm thinking there might be a different type of cluster...

balbs

What year is your car? The dash changes are for pre-LCI cars. Unfortunately those dashes are fixed on LCI. Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

REALIST-E60

how do you access the ''secret menu''??

porando

In a old good days BMW cars had a real temp analog gauge which showed engine/coolant temp in real time...
Because BMW engines temp was not constant - it was fluctuating and customers complained - BMW came with a very smart idea... I am not sure exactly when this started but I have noticed it in E38 (740i) models...
What they did was to install a a gauge which looks like a temp gauge and it even showed a little movement of the temp needle when engine was warming up but once it got close tot he center (optimal) they forced it to stay perfectly in the center and it would not show any variation until engine was really hot and then it would jump to a yellow or red zone instantly....so everybody was happy - temp was always perfect..
So, it was not a real time gauge anymore - it looked like one but it was basically an indicator that temp was within OK range,yellow zone or red zone...
And in more recent cars they finally figured out that they can save money and space and dropped that "thing" - and we have what we have.... No warning light means temp is OK, yellow warning and red warning... dashed lines on rpm meter is not exactly showin the temp but it is related - as engine warms up they display fewer marks and allow you to use higher rpm

However, they still measure the real temp and if you like to monitor the coolant temp - you can do it by observing hidden OBC functions.... it is function #7 - I believe which displays coolant temp

See attached how to unlock and access "secret" OOB screens

Allen

do a search for this...tons of info.

jg7879

when you start ur engine in the morning the lines should go up to about 6250 rpm
i did count the numebr of lines once you start the engine there should be at least 9 lines
before the red mark on your rpm?? and as the engine heats up the lines decrease and it stabilizes to 3 or 4 lines when the engine has heat up..if you have no lines after the engine has been turned on for about a minute then there might be a problem, your car might overheat and the idrive will let you know also.. try it and keep us posted