BMW idrive

[BHM 994]

No laughing at my ignorance! This isn’t my usual bag but it’ll be an ideal Bit of flash for the not much cash market - I’ve been offered a very cheap older 5 series & the gentleman thinks it’s a disaster that the idrive is u/s, he’s been to bmw & shat himself - I nearly fell over when he told me what he’d accept if he likes my car. 

1) As a complete technophobe, am I correct that bmw’s Idrive is just a fancy radio/I.c.e. system?

2) Basically a knackered idrive unit won’t disable the car?

A knackered glorified radio is of little concern to me at this money but something that buggers-up everything else electrically is, if you get my drift. 

[Mojo121 229]

It depends on what level of i-drive, but yeah, in the e60s it allows you to control ICE + seeing service info + settings such as if you have the running lights on, resetting the flat tyre monitor, syncing your phone, some climate settings etc etc and no a knackered I-drive on an e60 won't ruin anything else... it just might make it a pain to live with. I should think it's a 2003 - 2006 (?) so it's a pretty basic system. It looks like teletext when it's working.

Depending how far you want to go into it there are guys on eBay who'll repair them for £2-400. 

I'd take it in, advertise with non-working i-drive and if it's a diesel 6 pot it'll be snapped up by eastern euros.

[twerp 69]

might even be fixed with a reset 

[EPV 631]

I know a firm in Bradford called revtronics and what they don’t know about idrives ain’t worth knowing. The so remote/mail order fixes, send out usb sticks with updates on etc. Just ring them it will be solved. 

They do*

[BHM 994]

Thank you very much for your comments & the couple of emails (Andy & mark)

It’s just an old 2005 big petrol engined saloon so by the sounds of it the idrive will be just a fancy radio. Even if the worst comes to the worst it’s probably worth repairing if it’s only a couple of hundred quid & the rest of the car is as good as promised 

I think the punter, an old guy still using dealers, was quoted £2K+(??), at that money it’d be getting either ignored or an old £30 Goodmans unit thrown in 

Ill let you know in due course.

[EPV 631]

I sold a 545i Tourer on a 54 plate so I expect the set up is the same and the idrive was responsible for Nav, phone, Radio, trip computer. I suppose it really depends on how many buyers you want to attract, i’m assuming it’s something like a 540i or similar so won’t most buyers want all the toys working? 

 

[c_cars 56]

33 minutes ago, EPV said:

I suppose it really depends on how many buyers you want to attract, i’m assuming it’s something like a 540i or similar so won’t most buyers want all the toys working? 

 

Just needs an AD brutal video special when it comes to sale time..

[BHM 994]

18 minutes ago, EPV said:

I sold a 545i Tourer on a 54 plate so I expect the set up is the same and the idrive was responsible for Nav, phone, Radio, trip computer. I suppose it really depends on how many buyers you want to attract, i’m assuming it’s something like a 540i or similar so won’t most buyers want all the toys working? 

 

Yes to a certain extent I agree (it always easier having everything working) so if it’s a cheap fix it’ll get it, if not it won’t. Tbh it’s only the radio that’d be a concern to me - anything else I can talk my way around and it’ll be priced correctly anyway.

As for some fussy punter expecting 100% perfection my attitude on a few grand’s worth of 13 year old bmw will be ‘take it, or leave it’, I won’t be blowing smoke up anyones arse cos it won’t be priced sky high at my establishment. In my book it’s just an old, big petrol barge, with only moderate performance, near the end of its life, that’ll attract penniless big talkers like moths to a lightbulb. In the immortal words of AD “You don’t get gold for the price of silver”.

[Dave2302 387]

And you can't polish a turd 

[Mark101 536]

59 minutes ago, Dave2302 said:

And you can't polish a turd 

But you can roll it in glitter

[Dave2302 387]

Yeah but it's the shit that's sticky not the glitter