Crazy Dave

I had issues with my fan either not working or stuck on full a couple of months ago. I concluded that the FSR was most likely at fault but before getting a replacement, I decided to find out where in the car it was. After achieving that, it was easy enough to take the FSR out, clean up the contacts, and put it back in. Has worked OK ever since. BTW I am in Kuwait at the moment. (last day today). Plenty of BMWs over here but nothing on the road over 5 years old. I asked what happened to the old ones. It seems there are heaps parked out in the desert and buying spares is easy. Had it all arranged for this afternoon but ran out of time. Im pissed about that but there will be other chances to get there I hope.

I just happen to be in China at the moment so tried to find these units. They are not for sale on the local market, however I phoned the factory and they shipped me 2 units overnight for $NZ 104.00 each

I sent Greg a PM asking if you could record to USB drive, and as an extension to that be able to play back on other devices, put movies on the USB for playback in the car, and pause and catch up live tv on the memory stick. I did not get a reply, but hey, we all get busy. Hint Hint Greg - did you get a chance to play with this.

Hi Stuart I see you are in Christchurch. If you send me a PM I would be willing to have a look at this with you. (I am a radio engineer by trade but I have a reasonable understanding of ohms law) As Grant says there could be many reasons for these symptoms and I am not a BMW expert but poor or loose battery connections would do this. A good voltmeter should soon show up where the voltage is sagging. Cheers Dave

Cheers Grant Actually the timers were not set at all. It must have been after a battery disconnect. ie: no digits in the time values in either timer. As soon as I set them to 0:00 and made sure the timers were off then the LED went out. Ive never used the feature however I have a friend who works for a heating element company. They make heating elements to go in radiator hoses and he offered to get me one. This is so that you plug the element into the mains (via a timer) and early on those winter mornings the car is all toastie warm when you get in to go to work. Im just not sure about what hose to put it in.

Am just looking at getting my E39 windows tinted. The company who I want to do the job are concerned about all of the trim on the inside of the windows, however when I took the vehicle in for a quote, they were really only concerned about one piece. On the rear side doors there is vertical trim on the inside between the main window and the quarter window behind it. How is this trim removed? If I can get it off then the company will tint the windows, however they are worried about breaking bits if they try and remove it.

On E39s with the 16:9 video display there is a small red LED in the symbol of a fan. It is next to the selection knob. Recently, mine has been on permanently even with the key out. The fan, heater and other aspects of the display seem to work fine. Anyone know why this LED is staying on?

When I bought mine, it had a pinhole on the underside of the upper radiator hose. Took me a while to find and was replaced by the dealer. However the low coolant level warning light is awesome. Gives plenty of warning to check and top up. I drove it like this for a couple of weeks until I found the problem.

The DC blocker is just a capacitor in one leg so that the DC feed from one tuner does not see the DC from the other. Only one of the tuners (original one is probably preferable) needs to feed DC up the coax to the Antenna amplifiers. Running two tuners off a single antenna system will lower the signal into the tuners by 3dB (half signal) but this will hardly be noticible except in weak signal areas. I was thinking about this tuner (or one similar) and was contemplating using the built in antennas. Im also off to China next month so I was going to see if I could find these tuners over there.

So Greg, where did it come from and what do they cost? Are you only up in Christchurch for Saturday? It would be good to catch up but I am in Johannesburg and dont get back into ChCh until Sunday afternoon. BTW - South Africa has one of the highest rates of BMW ownership I have ever seen in the world. Must be 1 in 20 vehicles on the road seems to be a BMW. I am putting feelers out to see if the wreckers have parts that I can get shipped to NZ ( like MkIV nav units and ULF modules )

Thanks Jochen, Your answers are not always the ones I want to hear, :-) but you are a mine of information on these vehicles. I appreciate your help.

Maybe the way I worded it - I was only thinking of the new Android model and then only the second revision with OBC. But whether to bite the bullet and be first in the queue for one of these or wait for some reports. Would be very interesting indeed At the moment Im just feeding my my second audio source into the Telephone input wire at the Telephone TCU/JBIT connector. It works well with the audio coming out of the front speakers only along with the stereo audio. I just haven't researched how the signal path works and whether I will lose this signal path if I put a Dynavin in.

Yes I had heard that - Sounds great - Just not sure if I want to be first in the queue for one. Wouldn't mind hearing some reports of the first installs. Maybe I should just bite the bullet :-) I have grown used to and do like the Upper MID Time, Speed Limit, and Range displays. I would be disappointed to lose them. I also use the Telephone audio input to bring a commercial two way radio output to the front speakers. I thought I read somewhere that the front speakers have dual voice coils so hopefully I wont lose that.

Thanks Jochen Not the answer I wanted but at least I know where Im going.

If you hold the stalk in, it eventually goes to "PROG" mode and you can select on the Video display which items you want selectable on the MID. I have tried several combinations of the stalk and Trip Meter/Control check buttons, but nothing exciting happened :( Of course if the Video unit was not there, then the operation may be different. BMW have been known to employ redundant equipment control.

Hi All Instead of upgrading the Japanese Nav in my 2001 E39 touring, I am considering replacing it with a Dyanavin V5 (yes I know the Android models are just around the corner). Now I do like the OBC functions for Consumption, Range, Time, Avg Speed etc and I think that they will display on the MID if I have a Dynavin installed. I actually prefer to glance down at the MID rather than across at the video screen and I have the Time displayed on the MID by default. Now what I want to know is, is there a way to reset these functions and adjust the time if you dont have original the Video display? I think Navcoder might be able to set the time, but is there a way to reset the others. OR do you lose these functions if you remove the Display, Radio, Nav unit and CD changer? I thought I read somewhere that the Dynavin (well V5 anyway) supported OBC interface but Paul at Prestige tells me this is not the case. Cheers Dave

Not that I have done it yet, but I believe that the beacon (VICs) system operates on 2.4Ghz and so this means that the vehicle is fitted with a coax from the rear of the vehicle to a 2.4Ghz antenna on the windscreen. Apart from the fact that the antenna faces outwards, this is a method of getting TCU or ULF signals back up to the from of the vehicle.

That one off Ebay looks like a starter, but, as has been well pointed out here, avoid the MPEG2 ones. On a related subject my 2001 E39 when the TV is set to the AV in channel shows MUTE at the bottom of the screen. Video works if you stick something in the AV port but no sound. Anyone know how the MUTE for the AV channel works or more importantly how to turn the MUTE off. Cheers Dave

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation The voltage is turned on and off at a processor controlled rate. So if you want 30% brightness then the voltage is turned on for 30% of the time and off for 70% of the time. This happens a relatively high speed. (maybe 100 times a second) the result to the naked eye is that the lamp, LED, etc only receive an average of 30% of the voltage over time even though they receive 100% while the pulse is on. So the lamps / LEDs glow at 30% of their brightness. Headlights can operate the same way when set as DRL (Daytime Running Lights) I suspect all the PWM is done in the LCM (Light coder module). So you might be able to find a 5 volt supply to feed them externally but you might want to diode isolate them as 5 VDC going back into the output of the LCM might let the smoke out.

I would think that re coding the Light Check Module to NOT Hot or Cold check those lights would do the trick. NavCoder software is good for this. A couple of members on the forum offer to do this in their local area if you do not feel that Jochens retirement fund is not a worthwhile cause. Another option would be to place a load resister across the lamps so that the LCM sees a similar resistance to the original lamps and won't report a fault, and the resister will sink the pulse current which MAY NOT cause the lamps to flash. I have not tested this but have played with other light circuits on the E39.

I think Sirius Sat radio only works in the USA where they have Satellite coverage. Never seen it anywhere else. It is a great system although it is pay subscription. I have used it in rentals over there.

Mine arrived from Dealextreme yesterday (they must wonder whats going on in KiwiLand) Tried it out last night and it seems to work fine. Tried to install it on my work laptop today, but because I have previously had the official software on it, it would not play ball. Probably have to delete something in the registry, but have not figured out what yet. I suspect you could do some damage with this software if you did not know what your doing. I wanted to set up autolocking doors at a certain speed but am not sure if it can be done or what module does it.

Good info Thanks Mines an 09/2001 so must be the first of a new breed

So I thought this vehicle had a world tuner. And was therefore programmable to NZ frequencies by keypress on the front panel. Or is the 01 just a bit too early for this?

Don't go knocking the Jap imports just because their specifications do not fit what you require. Although I am new to BMW ownership I consider the Jap import path to ownership to be extremely good value. From what I can see, The Jap vehicles are highly spec'ed, very well looked after and great value when you consider the features you get for the price. In my case the Nav needs to be changed but that was all researched and built into the price I paid for the vehicle. (has yet to be done so I hope I don't end up regretting that statement ) Just wish I'd known about Jap import BMWs when my wifes car got written off after the first Christchurch earthquake. We would have two in the garage :-)