boerboel

Hi guys I finally got around to posting my winter setup. Its VMR V810's 18X8.5 with Michelin Xice Xi3 245/40/18





both cars at work, 740iL is stored for winter.



back end



parked at the cottage - no danger of getting stuck, its unstoppable!



interior shot - I just figured out it will store CD's into memory, love that!






One comment for you E60 winter drivers, do you find that the heater doesn't really warm up your feet? I have a 8km commute, and its -8deg C today (17 Fahrenheit ) and without the seat heater and steering heater, I would freeze!. Heat is cranked up, auto zone control is pumped to full floor heat, full red zone temp control when you switch the little diagram to the heater rotator level.


Other than that I love the car. I've had it 7 months now. Only other comment would be its throttle response is quite bad when the turbos are off boost.
I really really love the SAT tuner, and the I drive controller. I love to twiddle with that thing all the time, like flipping channels at home on TV.
I also just discovered it will play a DVD when parked. Super fun.

My other car is a 740iL which I really really love, but no SAT tuner so less fun.


Boerboel out.

Glowin

Nice ride! You've got Sirius radio, I take it. If you're paying the $15 a month, here's a tip. Call before your renewal, and tell them you'll cancel it, and you might get it as low as $8 a month even. I don't DD this car, so I told them I don't even listen to the radio that often. Not sure if they can/bother to check to see how often the tuner dials in, but still worth a try.

For the boost lag, get yourself a Cobb Accessport. Trust me. Best $800 you'll spend. Get a used one even. V2 is the same as V3 for tuning. It makes the car more peppy for sure, even on low throttle applications I find.

Can't recall heat by my feet ever being an issue...

And if you ever get off SAT radio, get yourself a Miccus mini-jack rx, and plug it into the Aux port under the armrest. It auto shuts off and on when it's plugged into power (which luckily there's a USB port under there too) and auto connects to my phone as I get in for music only.

For the DVD, pretty sure also you can get it coded so that you can play it while driving, for your passenger.

boerboel

Cool thanks for the suggestions Glowin. I will try that with Sirius. For the access port, I'm kind shy about hot-rodding an N54, they have enough frigging problems bone stock. my car has had 2 fuel pumps already, before I got it 68,000 miles. I bought it in Boston after a long, long search.
I have a little apple jack that I plug my phone into, its kind of fiddly but it will play youtube in the car through the speakers.
That DVD coding thing would be fun except you will get a ticket for it here.
Other things I sort of want but need to think about is a dash cam / rear cam system, I really like the idea, but I really don't want to drain the battery.
Btw that is a constant issue for me, the battery seems to not be able to withstand the door open (with the lights on) for more than a minute or two. I have a trickle charger that is supposed to recondition the battery, I plugged it in for a week when I was on vacay, didn't help really. Guess it might be time for a new battery. I would like a marine-strength type battery, as I clean the car a lot with the doors open.
Also on my list to think about is a undetectable radar system, cops here are really, shall we say unfun. They will impound your car for a week for 50km over, +10,000 $ fine. Really takes the fun out of it. I have been on some of the radar detector boards reading up. I don't really want to screw with this car's electrical system, but I would like a stealthy install, so that means tapping into power somewhere and running wires around airbags. Those guys on rdforums and radardetector.net take it to a whole other level!
Instead of all complaints I will say that one of my favourite things about the E61 is the headlights are superb at night, really leagues better than the E38 with xenons as well. 9 years, big difference in lighting. And the tailgate auto up / down, I love.
The heat thing kinda bugs me but I'm coming from a E39 540iT so that used to heat up really quick in winter, like within a couple of stoplights. I miss that.
old car with 19" Mparallel reps from Dennis Cooper on Bimmerforums.

vanos

Very nice to see another fellow Canadian with an E61 (very rare in Canada). Yours is super clean for winter, you should see mine. For your feet, make sure you crank it to the max for the feet. BTW, love your E39 Touring.


I'm off to watch the CAN-USA Junior Hockey Championship game. Go Canada!


Happy New Year.

sFfalenn

Huh. I also bought mine in the Boston area in March, same color, about the same options except I have 3 pedals in mine and no SAT.

Still working to hardwire a few things into mine like a mounted phone connection and Valentine RD. I have wondered is there was a way to hack a backup camera to display on the dash unit, but I am thinking not.

boerboel

Hi guys I think I have my heating issue sorted out. I was finding the floor heat was not sufficient to warm up my feet by the time I got to work (about 8km ~5 miles) on this setting.



After some review of the owners manual I switched it to this setting:



with this on the passenger side:



and I find its a lot better. In the first pic , the auto program would sort of decide by itself where to throw the most air, and the second two pics override that and send it to the feet. Also I find it weird but I guess it makes sense, the A/C compressor always wants to turn on, manual says its to dehumidify the air to avoid fogging the window. I leave the system off for the first 2 km to allow heat to build, and of course I have the seat and the steering wheel switched on.


Remember I'm coming from an E39 540iT, that car would heat up within a couple stoplights on all but the chilliest days.
We've just had some -18 C days here and I was finding my new wagon quite cold. -2C today and it heats up much better.


I am going in for a new battery on Wednesday, this one is getting tired. On sat morning the heater wouldn't blow above the minimum setting and I found in the manual that the system will do that when the battery is down on power. This is after charging it multiple times all week.

stormhammer

For the AC compressor coming on - that is correct - to dehumidfy the air. It's most of the reason why your window fogs up when you're inside My Miata does this as well when you turn it onto window defrost, the ac compressor automatically engages.