The temp indicator on the dash is not a gauge. Pull up ECT with torque and watch goes it works.

It is close to useless. It shows normal temp when cold enough to still be open loop (I drove for for months with a stuck open Thermostat due to the idiot non gauge) it only goes high once you've blown out your coolant you get no warning.

There are effectively three positions:

1) starting to warm up
2) warmish to extremely hot
3) overheated 5 minutes ago.

good to know
 

Thank you, sir. Though my friend worked on the cooling system extensively, he said he never saw the needle rise above mid-way. I'm going to monitor it closely, thru my android apps, so I don't get surprised. I checked fluids before my drive yesterday; all were OK, but I put a jug of Blue 50-50 antifreeze mix in the cargo area, and a quart of synthetic 5W-30, just in case.

I would've thought German-Engineered Instrumentation would be more accurate, but maybe it's a way to provide more work for techs.

I have a tablet mount in my '04 Chevy 2500HD, and a spare in mt '09 HHR Panel, that I use to monitor them (and use Google Maps on trips). I'm sure I can make one for the X5. I can leave the OBDLink LX dongle in the x%, since it shuts off by itself (I have two LXes, and one BAFX dongle).

Regarding getting into the car when the battery dies, that is a definite thing to have a plan for. But as long as your mechanical door key lock works and is not used regularly, you should be able to consider that as your first line of defense. When you've got power, that mechanical key triggers the power locks, but if there is no power, it works mechanically to lock and unlock.

Regarding the temp gauge, first off, there are two different types of instrument clusters (high and low) on these cars and they have slightly different gauge features (e.g., low has an orange high temp warning light, vs. high has no warning light, but a text display warning).

A few of us have reprogrammed that gauge so it displays continuously rather than being straight up over a wide band. Pioneered here by @overboost, I think. Details are in the following threads:

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...hermostat.html

PA Soft 1.4 | Crowz Nest

About the inaccurate temp gauge...high/low clusters are confusing enough, but reprogramming strings of gobbledygook code is far beyond my skill set.

I may have to rely on the tablet set-up showing real temps, or installing a three gauge set of Autometer temp gauges (water, oil, transmission). Done that on many cars/trucks.

Sometime later on, I may get a used laptop (maybe take my wife's Lenovo, and build her a PC like I built for myself in 2019), and use pa soft or whatever you guys used, and give it a shot.




Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

I use a basic WiFi obd and phone app or the new think diag OBD Bluetooth to pull up realtime values.

If you have high cluster apparently there's a way to program OBC to show engine temp in cluster.

You can temperately show engine temp on the cluster using the hidden menu.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Oh boy, thanks for this tip! I kept my old sonicare to help in parts cleaning. Now another great use for it:D.

It's so cute how it fits


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

like it was designed for the key
 

Complementary symbiosis in action!