jochen

I saw this car on Tuesday when I was in Geneva at the show. Looks interesting in the flesh - but the Königseggs looked better .....

Oxidised contacts on the unloader relay which supplies power to the amp. Replace the relay with a new one.

Remember to watch the polarisation of the wire, and take into account the magnetic deviation for where you live By aligning the magnetic polarity, the free-space particles excited by the subwoofer will be enhanced, rather than degraded, by the faraday-effect of the grill as they pass through. You can also improve you performance by de-magnetizing the tyres : "Magnetic fields emanate from radial tires due to the presence of reinforcing belts which are made of magnetized steel wire. When these tires spin, they generate alternating magnetic fields of extremely low frequency (ELF), usually below 20 Hz. " So you can see the negative effect the magnetised tyres will have on the subwoofer performance To avoid these problems, use non-metallic grill material, and ensure the immediate surrounding area (ie: within 1/8 of a wavelength @ 50Hz) contains no magnetic materials. You can effectively achieve this by mounting the subwoofer on a fibreglass boat anchored 10kms of Rangitoto Island ... :-)

the answer is a clear NO. The newer cars use a fibre optic MOST system that is much much much much harder to change, and to my knowledge no one has ever changed one yet. TV will go Radio will go if car is reprogrammed from Jap to Euro, but BMW won't allow that to happen Nav requires hardware change, noone knows if it will work.

There's a simple rule of thumb: if your headlighs dim to the tune of the bass beat, you need the capacitor. The headlights will dim because the amp is sucking more power out the car then it can handle. The capacitor provides a short-term extra reserve of power, that can supply the car (amp or whatever) and thus supplements the main car battery But if you never listen to loud music, then the amplifier will never draw too much power, and you won't need the capacitor. An alternative to the capacitor is to mount another car battery next to the amplifier: it does essentially the same thing. But the capacitor is smaller, and normally sold in pretty colours with shiny terminals - more bling than functionality :-)

No, the nav drive is a nav computer only. The fact that it can read DVD media just helps to increase the size of the map disc. It cannot play video DVDs.

Easy peasy. The TV tuner is called the 'video module' and is located behind the bulge on the drivers side behind the rear seat on ex-Japan cars, and behind the CD changer on the lefthand side of the boot on all other cars (Singapore, NZ, etc). Decide where you want to mount the DVD player (or iPod video, which is what I used. I put mine in the glovebox). Buy an AV cable - the usual RCA to RCA with yellow/red/white connectors - long enough to go from video module to whereever your DVD player will be. Cut the RCA plugs of one end of the cable, and solder the BMW connector pins to the cable. Note that the AV IN is mono, so connect left and right audio inners together (white and red), and connect the audio shields together. The fact that it is mono doesn't matter, the sound is fantastic anyway. Connect the pins into the appropriate unused terminals in the white video module connector as follows: Pin 4 = Audio inner (white & red) Pin 5 = Audio outer (shield) Pin 6 = Video inner (yellow) Pin 15 = Video outer (shield) You can ask Grant McFie (hotwire) for some pins, or get them from an old plug at the wreckers, or buy them from BMW Have fun!

Check the rear suspension subframe mounts. The metal wears and tears (metal fatigue) resulting in a fix that can cost thousands and thousands.... sometimes $10,000. google E46 suspension subframe problems Read this: http://www.turnermotorsport.com/image/susp...inforcement.pdf you can also see videos on youtube: BMW subframe damage video Problem was fixed in factory on post 2001 (I think) cars.

Are you sure it is Mk1? Read the SW version Changing Mk1 to Mk2/3/4 is quite a job! Totally different system.... But can be done... Jochen

No. Asia is Japan and Singapore, and you cannot lump those two countries together. BMWs ex Singapore, UK, Australia and South Africa, and the NZ-New BMWs, if fitted with Telephone, have GSM telephones fitted. Vodafone NZ operates the NZ GSM network, so all these cars will work in NZ. Cars from Japan have a special Japanese-only telephone system fitted that only works in Japan. So only cars ex-Japan have to have their telephone (and nav and radio) changed to work in NZ. All other BMWs from all other countries work fine in NZ. Jochen

The time taken to plug in a NZ SIM card into the phone and make a phone call is less than the time it takes to write you question on this forum. Plug in the Vodafone SIM card and start calling. Simple. Jochen

Hi, UK system is identical to NZ. So slide in the NZ map CD, and the nav will work in NZ And plug in a NZ Vodafone SIM card, and the phone will work in NZ Simple. Oh: and unplug and throw away the UK traffic master, they cause trouble when they get old. It cannot work in NZ so can be unplugged and bypassed. Plugs are behind the CD changer in the boot. Jochen

I don't live in NZ any more. But the time to change the system to NZ takes about 2 to 3 hours once all the parts are available. Depending on where you are in the country you can get it done by hotwire in Te Awamutu or ask hybrid in Auckland to help with a DIY. Jochen

I bet its your idle control valve, gummed up with petrol and oil deposits. Means the valve flap is stuck and cannot move freely. The ICV is right on the front of the V8 engine, really easy to access. Remove the ICV and clean it with spray on carb cleaner, very easy and quick to do. Always needs doing when the car is 10yrs old anyway, so if you havenet cleaned your ICV, your should do it anyway. I did mine on a Sat morning, took 30min, most of which was spraying until it was clean inside. Made a HUGE difference to idle performance.

These UGDOs (Universal Garage Door Openers) are very popular in the USA but hardly seen anywhere else in the world. They are made by HomeLink and are supplied as OEM equipment to a lot of American market cars. It's a cool concept and much nicer integration than a 'clip on' garage door opener.

Depends on the market that it was built for. A lot of BMWs destined for Japan only had the Alarm if ordered separately as an option. If the vehicle was NZ-New, then the Alarm was fitted as standard. I don't know what was specified for Singapore Note that all E90s have a factory immobiliser. This is a standard fitting for all markets. So the answer is: check each potential vehicle individually to see whether it has the original factory alarm fitted.

A nearly flat battery will cause this. Charge the battery and you'll be fine. The transmission fault will clear itself. If your car won't fire you have a fuel or spark problem. Likely to be fuel, as the spark is generated in each cyclinder, and you won't have 8 x coils failing without any warning messages. So suspect a fuel issue. Note your car already has a factory immobiliser built in, so the security system has no need to immobilise anything. The factory immobiliser is heaps better than any after market unit. Jochen

I looked at it and it wasn't worth the hassle. I sold the nav units for $1 each :-) Google "ebay japan" and you'll see some interesting stories...

Radio can be re-programmed by hand to make it work, no tools required. TV works, just change settings to PAL-Europa, then it will pick up all NZ TV channels, including UHF. Cost to make radio & TV work = $0, time required = 5 minutes, tools required = None. Nav can be made to work by replacing nav computer, best is a Mk4 for that age vehicle. As Grant and the others mentioned, Mk4 navs sell 2nd hand for around $1,000, plus fitting etc and you normally have a $1,500-ish cost. This price is low and cheap when compared to the original cost of the nav option, and the exclusivity you get at the end (there are very few E39s in NZ with fully working nav, my estimate = <20 cars). The awesome functionality makes the effort to change well worthwhile. You may also have a Telephone in the car, if so, that can be made to work as well, by changing from Jap system to the Bluetooth unit which can connect to your mobile phone. Around $1,000 in parts + some labout. The e39 is an awesome car, and well worth the money to make the nav system work. Jochen (in Switzerland)

BMW uses a special custom BMW stereo connector. You can buy plug and play connector sets from Repco, to go from BMW to DIN, then from DIN to Pioneer. Then the stereo is plug and play. Note that the antenna plug is also the DIN standard, so you will need an antenna plug adapter, available from car stereo shops or Jaycar etc Jochen

The X3 is the easiest and quickest to convert.You can reprogem the radio by hand. No band expander required. Press and hold select.with 1. s of turning on. then change fromjap.to oceania mode.The nav needs to be replaced and it MUST be replaced with a Mk4 nav. Cost around 1200 to 1500 depending on where you get the nav and who does the work. Very diy.Jocheb (in switzerland)

I do drop in from time to time I now live in Switzerland, so any help is via email only Send me a PM Jochen

If you value having the electronics all working properly, then get a Singapore car. The Singapore cars have the same electronics as the NZ cars, this means that radio, TV, Telephone and navigation all work perfectly here in NZ. Buy a Jap car and the radio won`t work, the telephone will never work, and the nav will never work. Only the TV will work properly.

Jochen here (hi all!) firstly, BMW cannot help you if you take a Jap car and fit Euro nav to it. You create a car that was never designed to exist: 99% Japanese, with the Euro nav system - the BMW diagnostic computer won´t be able to handle the combo and cannot program the nav. UNLESS you change the vehicle order to remove the Japanese option, and label the vehicle as a Euro ECE vehicle. Then the BMW software might be able to talk to the new car... As for the nav: there were 2 or 3 different versions for the E65 ex Japane, the VIN number would clarify what your car has. I have never worked on an E65, but the nav is a modified Mk4 nav, made to communicate with the fibre-optic MOST system bus in the car. I do not know if the nav is plug and play (maybe), and I do not know if the Jap car will talk to the Euro nav - the software may be different. You have to try and see. You may also need to replace the audio system controller (ASK) but again this would be a try-and-see exercise. And you may have to remove the other Jap-specific components if fitted: like the Jap telephone-ôtherwise you may get errors on the databus. Regards, Jochen

Hi Yuen, Yes, the date is when they introduced the world-tuner. Means you can reprogram rather than replace the tuner. Makes the conversion cheaper. Plus the world tuner, which is a new-generation or NG tuner, has the following key feaures: a) the voice instructions blend in with the radio, rather than totally muting the radio. This is a great feature, because with the old-gen radio you keep getting interrupted by voice instructions. The new-gen radio delivers the instructions in a much more unobtrusive way. the new-gen radio, from a certain date, has AUX-IN capability c) the new-gen radio, from a certain date/SW versuion, has MP3 ID3 text support for the BMWE MP3 CD changer Also, from just before that date, they introduced the widescreen bordmonitor, so you get that as an extra benefit as well Jochen