jonbee

I find the biggest problem with my ivory leather is dye transfer from jeans etc. I use LTT Leathercare products. I clean them approximately monthly with 'auto maintain' and about twice per year with 'auto foam' (a stronger cleaner) followed by 'auto protect'. This has a matt finish so is invisible on the seats, but it seems to give some protection from dye transfer etc. Auto maintain then removes most of the staining but doesn't remove the auto protect. If I have had the grandchildren in the car z quick wipe with a damp cloth removes most of the mess!

There is quite a range of Castrol 0W30 oils on Opie's site. Some are LL04 and some are other (non-BMW) specs. There are some newer BMW specs too, LL12FE and LL14FE, both 0W/20. I suspect that the handbook says LL04 as suitable for topping up, but that the best economy will come from use of a 0W/20 FE spec oil. It seems quite difficult to work out exactly when to use LL12 and when to use LL14. I wonder if LL14 is to suit petrol particulate filters?

I find the centre display between the speedo & rev counter quite useful. I think it is slightly quicker to look at than the mid-facia screen when approaching a junction. It saves having to take my eyes off the road for quite as long. Glancing down seems quicker than looking across (I suppose it could just be a feature of varifocal glasses!).

If a car is advertised as having a particular feature I expect it to be there and working. If it doesn't work then I expect the dealer and BMW customer services to be apologetic ,helpful and try to get it sorted. Instead they are in denial, give the impression that they couldn't care less, and are not helpful. I have no reason to believe that things would be any different if something serious had gone wrong, and the recent horror stories about the EGR replacement programme seem to confirm this.

Map updates seem to be a complete shambles. Whether you get them or not seems to be pot luck. My car (built Nov 2017) has never received an OTA update (despite the sales information saying that it should get OTA updates for 3 years from new). Initially, connected drive website said that OTA and USB updates were available to purchase for my car, but neither were enabled from new. BMW customer service said the same until I went through to their complaints section, who told me that my car should get updates and to go back to my dealer. Countless phone calls later (the sales rep at Sytner Coventry wasn't particularly interested once he had sold the car), a service visit for them to check my car's software (when they assured me that all was working properly) and then several more phone calls, they eventually got USB updates enabled for me. They never succeeded with OTA updates though, this has never worked and still doesn't. Connected drive website still says OTA is available to purchase but USB shows as enabled until Nov 2020. I think with USB updates you get the full set of maps replaced, whereas with OTA updates you only get the new bits downloaded and somehow the car should integrate this into the existing maps. With USB updates, first you have to download and install BMW map download manager software. Then when you run this it downloads the maps etc as a zip file, and unzips them onto your USB stick. Mine refused onto a 32Gb stick (despite saying the file size was just under 32Gb) and I have to use a 64Gb stick. I have just downloaded 2019-2. As in post above, I have no idea what happened to 2019-1. My previous version was 2018-4. It's a relatively minor problem, but it's hugely annoying when an advertised feature doesn't work, and both BMW customer services and the dealer couldn't really care less. It makes me a lot less likely to buy another BMW when I come to change! I can accept that things go wrong sometimes, but BMW's reluctance to accept it, denial, and couldn't care less attitude is quite disgraceful.

On my 530i, which has two header tanks (1 for engine coolant, 1 for charge air cooler), the larger (engine coolant) one unscrews in normal, anticlockwise, direction. It is quite stiff, moves a fraction of a turn, then becomes very stiff. Sometimes I need to use two hands to turn it past this stiff point. It seems rather silly of BMW to make it so stiff that it needs this amount of brute force to turn it. I wonder if yours is the same?

Mine always sound when I reverse off the drive, over the footpath, and down the 'dropped kerb' ramp. Reminds me to double check the mirror in case somebody has parked opposite though!

'I conclude BMW are car builders, not software developers.' I agree with that all the way! Connected drive is pretty flaky (although mine has been partially working for a while now). It's supposed to pick up destinations from my google diary and transfer them to the car satnav automatically; I think that's worked twice in the last 10 months! OTA map updates is a total disaster. The dealer has checked my car and says it's all set up OK for OTA updates but it has never worked (and BMW customer service don't have a clue).

I've got white leather with grey poplar and black carpets etc and like it. The grey wood seems a bit more 'modern' than the traditional woods. It's a lot nicer in the flesh than it looks on the BMW selector website.

It seems to be your first option; if my wife unlocks the car it selects her as the driver, even if I get into the driver's side with my key in my pocket. It doesn't then recognise me as the driver.

I know it's an old thread but, for the record, the genuine BMW F10 bars do not fit the G30. The span is similar but the threaded holes in the roof rails are different sizes. The G30 is larger diameter than the F10, so the attachment bolts (which are not just plain bolts) are different.

My car is Dec 2017 530i SE. When I got it the map version was showing 2017-3. I logged into Connected Drive and it showed my options correctly, except for map updates, which showed as 'Available to purchase for your car', at a price of £69 for 2 years. My dealer (Sytners Coventry) assured me that my car had free updates for 3 years, despite what Connected Drive said. I phoned BMW Customer Services to ask why Connected Drive showed map updates as available to purchase and whether my car did have free map updates. Basically, their answer was 'computer says no'. they insisted that I would have to pay £69. They were non-committal when I said that I thought all BMW's had come with inclusive, free map updates for quite a while now (and certainly since before Dec 2017), just saying 'not necessarily'. Sytners still insisted that my car did have inclusive updates. I waited for another month, until well after 2018-1 had come out, but I never received an OTA update so I went through the routine again, with Sytners saying my car would get free updates and BMW Customer Services saying 'no, my car doesn't have free updates included'. I got back onto Sytners for a third time. Eventually they got back onto Customer Services and then got back to me to say it was sorted, but couldn't explain why it hadn't been showing as included on my car before. An hour or so later I got an automated text message saying that my car had been removed from Connected Drive, then another text a few minutes later saying my car had been added to Connected Drive. When I logged back into Connected Drive it showed that map updates were now included until December 2020 and that I could download the BMW Map Download software program onto my laptop. This showed 2018-1 as available to download and install via USB stick. However, I haven't downloaded it yet for two reasons: 1. I have read on another forum that some people are reporting sluggish navigation problems with 2018-1, and 2. I want to see whether I get OTA updates. Another month has elapsed and still I haven't received an OTA update, so I suspect my car isn't fully sorted yet. I has been a long and frustrating process to get this far, but I fear there may be some way to go yet! My advice to hantsxlg is to get back onto your dealer and insist that they sort it out. Don't take no for an answer. There seem to be all sorts of problems with Connected Drive but, of course, there is nothing wrong with BMW software! They won't admit that there could possibly be a problem with Connected Drive.