BMW E92. New owner questions.

milltown

Recently landed myself into a 2010 320D coupe in a deal that kind of happened so fast that I never really did much research into the E92 beforehand.
As such, maybe the motoring forumsters could help me with a few questions:

I'll regularly have the kids in the back but it seems that when I tip the front seats forward to let them in or out, the seats return to the angle they were at but not the fore/aft position on the rail. BMW can't have taken such a backwards step here from the E46 could they? Is there anything common about this? A cable unhooked or something? Driver and passenger seats both behave the same, strangely.

Front seatbelt helpers.
Neither of them work. They extend but they don't bring the belts with them when they do. I've come accross a few tutorials which seem to suggest that a minimum of gunthering and a self tapper is all that's needed to get them working. Is this the way to go? I haven't priced the replacement parts from an Irish dealer yet but bmwfans.info lists them around $30 a piece I think.

Phone dock in the armrest.
It looks like some sort of a Motorola dock that's there at the moment. Are iPhone adaptors cheap or easy to come by? The newer lightning type. My phone works grand for calls using the BT. If it was properly docked would I be able to play music from it without using the aux in? And control more than volume from the steering wheel? Such options look scarce on the head unit at the moment but I'm half hoping they just need to be enabled via software.

Last one I can think of right now; there's a button at the bottom of the centre console, just above the ashtray, that looks like a rev counter with a letter A on it. By default it's off (unlit) and it looks like the button in Mrs.Milltown's 2 series for knocking off the efficient dynamics business where the engine cuts out when stopped and in neutral. Apart from light up when pressed, it does nothing in my car though.

Thanks for reading!

TBi

milltown wrote: »

I'll regularly have the kids in the back but it seems that when I tip the front seats forward to let them in or out, the seats return to the angle they were at but not the fore/aft position on the rail. BMW can't have taken such a backwards step here from the E46 could they? Is there anything common about this? A cable unhooked or something? Driver and passenger seats both behave the same, strangely.

The seats on my mini have a catch on the rails which allow them to return to the same position. However you can inadvertently put this in a position where it doesn't catch. Usually all you need to do is tip the seat forward then slide it as far back as possible before returning the back upright. Now slide the seat forward as normal. Try tipping the seat again and it should catch at the position it started from.

Blazer

milltown wrote: »

Recently landed myself into a 2010 320D coupe in a deal that kind of happened so fast that I never really did much research into the E92 beforehand.
As such, maybe the motoring forumsters could help me with a few questions:

I'll regularly have the kids in the back but it seems that when I tip the front seats forward to let them in or out, the seats return to the angle they were at but not the fore/aft position on the rail. BMW can't have taken such a backwards step here from the E46 could they? Is there anything common about this? A cable unhooked or something? Driver and passenger seats both behave the same, strangely.

Front seatbelt helpers.
Neither of them work. They extend but they don't bring the belts with them when they do. I've come accross a few tutorials which seem to suggest that a minimum of gunthering and a self tapper is all that's needed to get them working. Is this the way to go? I haven't priced the replacement parts from an Irish dealer yet but bmwfans.info lists them around $30 a piece I think.

Phone dock in the armrest.
It looks like some sort of a Motorola dock that's there at the moment. Are iPhone adaptors cheap or easy to come by? The newer lightning type. My phone works grand for calls using the BT. If it was properly docked would I be able to play music from it without using the aux in? And control more than volume from the steering wheel? Such options look scarce on the head unit at the moment but I'm half hoping they just need to be enabled via software.

Last one I can think of right now; there's a button at the bottom of the centre console, just above the ashtray, that looks like a rev counter with a letter A on it. By default it's off (unlit) and it looks like the button in Mrs.Milltown's 2 series for knocking off the efficient dynamics business where the engine cuts out when stopped and in neutral. Apart from light up when pressed, it does nothing in my car though.

Thanks for reading!

Hi..I have a 07 e92 320d so welcome to the club
First off yeah I found the seatbelt yokes useless but I saw a video on youtube where a guy starched his belts and ironed them and this sorted his issue out no bother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFPL9VVCqvY

Regarding the bluetooth I got one of these and find it absolutely brilliant. No one even notices I'm using a hands free as the button is down near the gear stick. I had considered a parrot kit but glad now I went with this solution.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009NLTW60?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

And lastly..that button is for the start/stop.
By default it's off and the car only stops etc under certain conditions including temp etc.

MetzgerMeister

Seatbelts - The springs in the part that extends lose their force. Ironing and starching the belt also helps but it's easy enough to replace the arm. You literally just pull it out (with some force) and push the new one back in.

Seat on the rails - If you hold down the button on the side of the seat it should automatically return to the position it was in.

MetzgerMeister

By the way I guess I should have said this but my last car was a 2007 e92 335i and I'm speaking from experience rather than hearsay

robbie99

+1 on ironing the seatbelt. I had an e92 from new and after a few years the seatbelt got soft and would slip off the catch.

About the seat not returning to its original position... When you tilt it forward, you have to always slide the seat forward as far as it will go in order for it to return to its original position.

About the A button - you're right, that's for the auto stop start. When it's lit up the auto stop start has been knocked off. If the auto stop start never works for you, the chances are that the battery in your car is 'aged' and doesn't have the same capacity anymore. You'll need a new one for it to start working again. Mine got to that stage nearly three years and two freezing winters from new. The battery worked fine and was reliable for another few years (albeit without working auto stop start) but the time and date needed regular resetting which was quite annoying.

Does your car have a USB input under the armrest? If it does, you can connect an iPhone via a Y cable (it connects to both USB and Aux-In), scroll through playlists and directories and select songs through the steering wheel buttons. I'm not sure if the phone cradle allows access to the phone's music without USB also being present.

rebel.ranter

I'm guessing that your car has iDrive and Bluetoith given that you have a cradle already in place. There are lots of cradles available for different model phones. There was a different cradle for all the iPhones 3GS, 4, 5 & now the 6 too. They all came in at around the €100 mark from the dealer but the one for the iPhone 6 has gone mental in terms of price. There are loads of 4/5 cradled available on EBay.

milltown

I have bluetooth alright but not idrive, I don't think. Not the big circular knob in the centre console if that's what you mean. Phone pairs and works fine for calls over BT, including steering wheel buttons etc. Under the armrest I have a 12v socket and the aux input 3.5mm socket. No USB though.
I was just wondering whether it would be worth pursuing it a bit further to get proper integration of the phone for playing music off it. It's looking like it's probably more hassle and expense than it would be worth.

As far as the seats are concerned, I'm going to presume that the 335i had the fully electric memory seats. Mine are mostly electric, no memory, but have mechanical fore/aft adjustment. I'll look into it in a bit more detail when I have a chance to see what's going on but really wanted, first of all, to confirm that they should return to exactly where they were after the back seats have been accessed. Thanks for that much at least!

And the efficient dynamics button; again just confirming what it was. Not bothered at all about getting it working.

Cheers for all the replies!

robbie99

I'm almost certain you'll have to retrofit USB to play music from your phone. My car had USB and Bluetooth, although I never invested in a phone cradle. Maybe someone else can confirm.

MetzgerMeister

milltown wrote: »

As far as the seats are concerned, I'm going to presume that the 335i had the fully electric memory seats. Mine are mostly electric, no memory, but have mechanical fore/aft adjustment. I'll look into it in a bit more detail when I have a chance to see what's going on but really wanted, first of all, to confirm that they should return to exactly where they were after the back seats have been accessed. Thanks for that much at least!

Yeah they were fully electric with memory so it's possible that they go back to where they were no matter what you do with them. I found it very handy.

My F30 doesn't have electric adjustment seats but it has everything my e92 didn't have and more so I'm not too bothered. At least they're heated

Special Circumstances

Loving the seatbelt extenders boys.
Almost as much fun as they were in the early 90's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-f4PuOVGos