Temperature of Car
 

Is there a way to figure out what the temperature of the car is to determine whether the car is warmed up or not?

I am truly surprised that the X5 doesn't have a temp. gauge.

According to the manual you are not supposed to let it warm up while idling but to let it warm up with general driving.

My X6 had one instead of the MPG at the moment..Not sure why they would not be consistent :rolleyes:

Would much prefer a temp gauge..

The link in that post, shows how to access the "cool" hidden menu in the E90. Do we know exactly how to do this in the E70?

same way

The X6 had the older N54 engine, and like my previous 335i, had a temperature gauge instead of the MPG meter. This was the oil temperature, which is not the same thing as the coolant temperature, and typically runs hotter. I'm not sure whether the LCI e9x's with the N55 engine still have this gauge, but it may be that BMW has done away with it on all cars with the N55. It was often a point of concern on the e9x boards as people assumed that it was too "hot" because it was the oil temp instead of the coolant temp.

I look forward to the day when all of the analog gauges are gone, replaced by a single "black panel" LED/LCD/etc. It would be nice to be able to select which gauges you want, where to put them, etc. I think that Ford, Ferrari, Lexus, and others are already taking baby steps in this direction. Replace the entire center stack with an iPad-like touchscreen for all of the controls, nav, etc., and it will all be better.

You are spot-on...It was oil temp and not coolant...

While I would also like a temperature gauge, I suggest that 99% of drivers wouldn't use it anyway. Auto manufacturers went to idiot lights because there was more chance of getting a driver's attention, not because they provided more information. Finally they just gave up the fight, and went to engine lights, not trusting drivers to distinguish between various problems, providing just a "something isn't right under the hood" light.

And if we consider most of the BMW coolant temperature gauges over the past decades, they haven't really been temperature gauges anyway. There were complaints that the needle wasn't in the middle where it should be, and it wasn't due to an engine problem, so a damping circuit was designed that essentially put the gauge at dead centre (12 oclock) for a wide range of actual engine temperatures. If the actual temperature was past a certain threshold, the gauge went to full hot. It didn't accurately indicate a range of temperatures, it was essentially an analogue idiot light. It had very limited value IMO.