Anybody else have a petrol Webasto?

[RenoHuskerDu]

Hello all,

I just bought a very clean 2002 530i in Southern Germany with sport suspension and manual gearbox. It's great fun to drive and a real stealthy speed machine. The local gendarmes now know me by name. I'm posting here in E53 because I know so many of them came with Webastos.

My 530i came with a Webasto and an apparently factory original BMW remote control. I found pics on the web of where the Webasto is installed on an E39.

The big question I have is: how does it work? The manual is all in German and my German is functional at best, not good enough to suss out technical instructions. The remote has on and off buttons. Once we get cold weather I plan to try out the buttons. But I wonder too about the safety of a petrol-burning Webasto. Our X5s both have Webastos but they are diesel. It seems to me that petrol is a bit riskier, to say the least, in a small burner tucked up under the back of the wing.

I suspect that the system is working in automatic mode. We did have one very cold morning already and I felt hot air come out of the dash within two minutes, so I suspect that the Webasto came on automatically like it does on our X5s.

Does anybody else have a petrol BMW with a Webasto on it? Any information to share?