[graaja]

Originally Posted by #enzowho

You can code the car with no worries with regards to warranty by be careful when you changes the parameters cause one wrong value could brick the car.

BMW will not void your warranty because of coding unless the system gets bricked which is quite rare if you know what you are doing.

Lot of us have done it and even maps have been updated.

Thanks. I have been doing some research in parallel on E-Sys coding and FSC codes etc. Lots of information to digest there. Will continue with the learning process till I am confident to take the next step.

Originally Posted by gururajrv

Considering to paint your alloy black will go extremely well with the car color in case you wish to do some exterior mods, black gloss paint on those beautiful looking alloys will amplify the looks even further. I must say a very nice log here.

Thank you for the kind words I am not planning to paint the alloys, as I want to keep the look of the car in stock form.

[abhi182]

@graaja : I had actually been meaning to ask you if you got around to activating CarPlay
Thought it would be worth mentioning a couple of things

- I had activated enhanced BT on my 2012 X1 and never faced any issues on the extended warranty during the 4+ years I kept it

- My understanding is that even during a central server diagnostic/ update, the only possible risk of detection is if you modify the vehicle order (FO) as it will be an upfront reconciliation break .
If however you modify only a couple of setting flags (which is all you need to do for this), it’s a change on a few flags amongst thousands. Add the fact that these flags don’t have a standard baseline to compare against (because these flags also change based on other user modifiable settings you change)
Thus it’s almost impossible for an automated process to detect a modification unless a technician with a vendetta against you goes manually diggining

[#enzowho]

Originally Posted by graaja

Thanks. I have been doing some research in parallel on E-Sys coding and FSC codes etc. Lots of information to digest there. Will continue with the learning process till I am confident to take the next step.

Stick to the usual stuff and you should be good.
My dealership has seen the stuff I have coded in my car and they have never bothered with it.
It all boils down to your relationship with the dealership.

E-SYS is an endless pit of thing which you can and shouldn't do with your car, its an added bonus if know German.

[bottle]

@graaja Have you faced issues at any Tolls with FASTag ? I saw the main thread where certain members had difficulties getting it scanned

[graaja]

Originally Posted by bottle

@graaja Have you faced issues at any Tolls with FASTag ? I saw the main thread where certain members had difficulties getting it scanned

There are a few instances where automatic scan does not detect the tag. And the toll operator manually scans the tag using a hand held machine. Other than this, no problem faced so far.

[graaja]

Update:

I got a notification on the instrument cluster that the front brake pads need to be replaced in 1700km, when the ODO was at 20900km. This is quite surprising as the iDrive was showing 17000km as expected life when the Odo was at 19000km. As I have seen similar experience from other owners in some other threads, I think the brake pad life predicted by iDrive should be taken with a bucket of salt. Will be taking the car to the workshop this week or next to have the brake pads replaced.

The rear tires have very little life left. At the time of 2nd service at 19000km, the service manager had said the rear tires have another 3K of life. I had totally forgotten about this. Yesterday, during a drive, I happened to see the rear tires by chance and they have very little tread left - not even 500 km worth.

The tires are Continental Sport Contact 5 RFTs, 255/45/R18. As these tires have been very comfortable with no road noise, I plan to go with the same tires.

Got the below quote from the dealer.


Though the price of the tires is reasonable, everything else (installation charges, alignment, wheel balancing etc) makes this prohibitively expensive.

I talked to my regular tire dealer and he said he can get the same tires for 21K to 22K (he will know exact price when he places the order with Continental) including taxes. With the tire dealer, they don't charge for installation and they would charge a max 1.5K for wheel alignment and balancing. So, I will be saving about 25K for the same tires from the regular tire dealer.

Only problem is that neither BMW dealer nor the tire dealer have this size in stock and this will take 2 weeks to arrive. And I will not be able to drive the car for 2 weeks.

A couple of "BMW newbie" doubts:

1. Is there any remote possibility of BMW not honoring warranty for any part as I got the tires installed outside? From various other ownership reviews, I am sure there is no need to worry, but wanted to check just in case.
2. There is a line item for ride height adjustment that is included in the quote by BMW. Is this mandatory when changing tires?

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by graaja

The tires are Continental Sport Contact 5 RFTs, 255/45/R18. As these tires have been very comfortable with no road noise, I plan to go with the same tires. Though the price of the tires is reasonable, everything else (installation charges, alignment, wheel balancing etc) makes this prohibitively expensive.

Cecked here in Delhi, Conti is not available here either. My regular guy has offered 99Y Primacy HP which is MO - Michelin @ Rs 18500. So Conti is priced competitively with BMW Dealer. I will suggest you speak to the parts manager and cajole him to give you discounts on the mounting/ balancing. Normally they will do as they also have some parts target to meet

If they don't agree, buy the tyres and get these fitted outside. It will be way cheaper. I normally never get Alignment done, just ask them to check, they will put on the machine, inspect and mostly it's within limits. In fact, considering my combined usage of high 6 figures on all the BMW's I have owned, I have done alignment done only once when the front suspension arm was changed.

Is there any remote possibility of BMW not honoring warranty for any part as I got the tires installed outside?

ZERO, nothing to worry.

There is a line item for ride height adjustment that is included in the quote by BMW. Is this mandatory when changing tires?

No, unless you are changing the profile, it won't be necessary.

Originally Posted by graaja

Even the BMW dealers do not have stock. They said they will also place order and get the tires. I will go ahead and get this sourced and fitted outside.

I will still order to BMW Dealer and get it fitted outside if they don't support me on the charges. BMW logistics is very good and normally they will have these tyres in Chennai. Hope they support you on the fitting/ balancing. You gave them some good business while changing the suspension and in some time maybe looking for something more exotic

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Cecked here in Delhi, Conti is not available here either. My regular guy has offered 99Y Primacy HP which is MO - Michelin @ Rs 18500. So Conti is priced competitively with BMW Dealer. I will suggest you speak to the parts manager and cajole him to give you discounts on the mounting/ balancing. Normally they will do as they also have some parts target to meet

If they don't agree, buy the tyres and get these fitted outside.
...
ZERO, nothing to worry.
...
No,unless you are changing the profile, it won't be necessary.

Thanks a lot for the inputs and clarifications.

Even the BMW dealers do not have stock. They said they will also place order and get the tires. And both the BMW and the outside dealer have said it will take 2 weeks to get the tires.

As I am going with the same tires - size and model, and as there is no need to worry about axle adjustment, I will go ahead and get this sourced and fitted outside.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by graaja

Update:

I got a notification on the instrument cluster that the front brake pads need to be replaced in 1700km, when the ODO was at 20900km. This is quite surprising as the iDrive was showing 17000km as expected life when the Odo was at 19000km.

The rear tires have very little life left - not even 500 km worth.

The tires are Continental Sport Contact 5 RFTs, 255/45/R18.

On the brake pads, the iDrive estimates are meaningless until you come below the 2000 km threshold. As I understand it, it just makes an estimate of how long it “should” last - and it’s only around 2000 km that there is a sensor which gets triggered - so it can drop from 25000 km to 2000 overnight. My rear brake pads lasted just 14000 kms.

Surprised at the level of tire wear you are seeing. From my (admittedly inexpert) observation, there seems to be plenty of tread left in my car (Pirelli Cinturatos) despite my having covered a similar distance.

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Surprised at the level of tire wear you are seeing. From my (admittedly inexpert) observation, there seems to be plenty of tread left in my car (Pirelli Cinturatos) despite my having covered a similar distance.

Two reasons I can think of for this

1. Your X3 is AWD whereas the Ganesh's 3GT is RWD. Since all 4 wheels drive your X3, the wear is distributed.
   
2. Since the 330i M sport version comes with a staggered setup, one cannot do a 4 wheel tyre rotation and even out the wear. Ganesh, have you rotated your tyres across the left and right positions? I think this will also help to extend life a little, unless of course if the tyres are uni-directional, which won't allow them to be swapped left and right.

Even then, 20,000 kms is very low. We have to factor almost Rs. 5/- per km for tyres on these cars

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Hayek

On the brake pads, the iDrive estimates are meaningless until you come below the 2000 km threshold. As I understand it, it just makes an estimate of how long it “should” last - and it’s only around 2000 km that there is a sensor which gets triggered - so it can drop from 25000 km to 2000 overnight. My rear brake pads lasted just 14000 kms.

True. The brake wear predictor in the iDrive is totally meaningless. Instead of showing 'x' km as expected life, BMW should just have a warning when the brake pads wear to expose the sensors.

Originally Posted by Hayek

Surprised at the level of tire wear you are seeing. From my (admittedly inexpert) observation, there seems to be plenty of tread left in my car (Pirelli Cinturatos) despite my having covered a similar distance.

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Your X3 is AWD whereas the Ganesh's 3GT is RWD. Since all 4 wheels drive your X3, the wear is distributed.

Since the 330i M sport version comes with a staggered setup, one cannot do a 4 wheel tyre rotation and even out the wear. Ganesh, have you rotated your tyres across the left and right positions? I think this will also help to extend life a little, unless of course if the tyres are uni-directional, which won't allow them to be swapped left and right.

As Santhosh has said, it should be because of AWD in your car vs. RWD in my car. I have not done any tire rotation. The tires are not uni-directional. So, I think I can at least do a left right swap of the tires. Will do this with the new set of tires and see if this helps in extending the life a little.

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Even then, 20,000 kms is very low. We have to factor almost Rs. 5/- per km for tyres on these cars

The front tires have good tread depth and should last another 3K kms. Just now, I inspected the rear tires and I see that the wear is uneven. On the outside of the tires, there is a little tread depth left while the inside has worn out completely. Maybe this can be a problem with alignment when they changed the suspensions. I will get the alignment checked again this time when I change the tires. If the tire wear were to be uniform, I could probably get a couple of thousands of kilometers more life.

[Akshay1234]

20k kms of life for the RFTs for an enthusiastic driver is just about right. Not to mention these are also sporty compound tyres.

I would suggest you junk the RFTs and switch to tubeless, BMW will not mess with the warranty in this case either. And the car will just become so much better.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Akshay1234

I would suggest you junk the RFTs and switch to tubeless, BMW will not mess with the warranty in this case either. And the car will just become so much better.

I did consider that option. However, I am not able to find any tubeless tires in the 255/45/R18 size. Even the tire dealer said it is difficult to find tubeless tires for the 18" wheels, whereas for 17" wheels you get many options.

Also, as the rear tires are completely worn out, I need to find a quick solution to source new tires. That is why I have ordered the RFTs for now. For the next round, I will start a little early in the selection and sourcing and see if I can switch to tubeless.

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by graaja

while the inside has worn out completely. Maybe this can be a problem with alignment..

Not really. Sports suspensions would have a slight negative camber to aid cornering and grip. So expect this sort of wear at the rear.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Not really. Sports suspensions would have a slight negative camber to aid cornering and grip. So expect this sort of wear at the rear.

Thanks pointing that out. This could be the reason.

As I am going to get the tires changed with an outside dealer, I have to find what is the camber requirement for the M Sport suspensions for the GT.