TermiPeteNZ

Breaker - as a matter of interest which of your 3! V8 BMWs do you enjoy driving the most?

We'll see what happens - I think Jeff Gray as an official dealer will need to replace it with the Jap spec'ed part (car is an import) if it is different from NZ units. Sorting the radio is cheap but getting Nav redone not so much. Agree the nav is prett good but haven't really needed it to date. I will be happy if it is just a battery issue or similar!

Check out the Clarkson video: https://youtu.be/wJn7LHE83cc

Cheers - hopefully its something simple and the unit doesn't need to get replaced! Will report back when sorted...

Cheers mate! Got to sort my to-do list first - undo ridiculous 'muffler delete' (back to stock Monday - sheesh I am super annoyed with myself for even entertaining the idea) and get my unreliable iDrive sorted.

M4ttyT what did you end up doing? I have a similar vehicle and after YouTubing/reading some material I had a delete done but kept the stock. Just as well as the noise is just too much and the drone is simply horrible. 5min in the vehicle and I was feeling like a complete idiot. Lucky it was a cheap and reversible experiment! After driving an Audi Allroad 4.2V8 (*beautiful* sound with stock exhaust!) I do feel that the stock exhaust on the 545i is anaemic but better to be refined and powerful rather than a droning monster!

Picked up a 2004 e60 545i auto in October last year after being unable to justify an E55 Beautiful tidy car with plenty of go. Working through various rubber and plastic issues that come with age. Previous BMW was an E34 535i which I sold some years ago. Work in IT in Wellington and my other car is a '99 Subaru Legacy GTB which is loads of fun to drive and practical (furniture collection after wife's shopping!) - but now surplus to requirements

Just wondering if anyone else has hit this issue with an iDrive unit failing to boot reliably. Had my car in getting a door trim/switch panel replaced and this involved the whole door panel off and disconnecting a bunch of things. When I got it back the iDrive was just coming up to the BMW logo and then flicking off later on. It is intermittent - about 15% of the time it does start up and run OK. Have done the reset/CTL_ALT_DEL using the 2 disc-player eject keys and the volume on/off button but that doesn't help. The garage is not a euro specialist but does regularly work on BMWs and the diags were reporting issues or absence of low-voltage signals - and didn't know what this meant in terms of a solution. Have it booked into Jeff Gray to get it diagnosed and/or replaced. Thank heavens I have an Autosure Extreme Cover warranty!!! Anybody seen this issue? Unfortunately if it gets replaced (with a replacement Japan-spec unit) I'm expecting to lose the NZ localisation for the radio and GPS nav system