E91 Straight Six Bearding

E91 Straight Six Bearding

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Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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pmorg4 said:
Good stuff! I look forward to a lengthy new Readers’ Cars thread chronicling your many upgrades biggrin

The main USB for streaming etc is under the armrest (the glovebox one is mainly intended for map updates etc). If you don’t have a USB it would likely require various upgrades to make it work depending on what’s already fitted. Personally if you don’t want to go down the Andream (CarPlay) route, I’d just get a Bluetooth streaming device that plugs into the aux socket and either stream to that from your phone, or get one that has an SD card slot for adding MP3s. The only thing is that you won’t be able to control it from the iDrive, but if you need that I’d go back to the CarPlay solution, it’s probably easier and far superior to getting the USB input working.
Thanks; there’s already a list of bits to get through! laugh

It’s an early car with the business head unit, so no USB fitted. It’s not got idrive, so I’d like to fit a screen at some point for CarPlay but that’s not top of the agenda. With just aux socket, I’m looking for an easy way to stream music. I know I can just use an aux to lightning cable, but I’ll get a phone mount in the interim for nav etc hence wanting to stream music.

His new car collection day is 22nd May, so it looks like I’ve got three weeks or so to get my life organised and get the 125i sold.

Edited by Court_S on Saturday 29th April 10:49

cerb4.5lee

31,037 posts

182 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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Nice one Sam. I'll look forward to following your adventures with the new car. thumbup

pmorg4

722 posts

118 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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Court_S said:
Thanks; there’s already a list of bits to get through! laugh

It’s an early car with the business head unit, so no USB fitted. It’s not got idrive, so I’d like to fit a screen at some point for CarPlay but that’s not top of the agenda. With just aux socket, I’m looking for an easy way to stream music. I know I can just use an aux to lightning cable, but I’ll get a phone mount in the interim for nav etc hence wanting to stream music.

His new car collection day is 22nd May, so it looks like I’ve got three weeks or so to get my life organised and get the 125i sold.

Edited by Court_S on Saturday 29th April 10:49
Ah, I didn’t realise it was a non-iDrive system. I’m which case I’d just go with the Bluetooth receiver plugged into the aux socket, that will work a treat with a phone mount and avoids any faff with plugging in cables etc. There are Andream solutions for non-iDrive cars on the E9x although they involve cutting into the centre of the dashboard so a degree of bravery is required! In some ways it’s actually better than the iDrive upgrade as then you’re not dependent on the temperamental CCC/CIC head units.

Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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pmorg4 said:
Ah, I didn’t realise it was a non-iDrive system. I’m which case I’d just go with the Bluetooth receiver plugged into the aux socket, that will work a treat with a phone mount and avoids any faff with plugging in cables etc. There are Andream solutions for non-iDrive cars on the E9x although they involve cutting into the centre of the dashboard so a degree of bravery is required! In some ways it’s actually better than the iDrive upgrade as then you’re not dependent on the temperamental CCC/CIC head units.
It’s billy basic spec wise; manual, no idrive, halogens, manual seats, no sunroof etc. it’s got front parking sensors and the split armrest.

But that’s fine, there are naff all tourings for sale. It’s had some good preventative maintenance done like a new rear subframe, VANOS solenoids, both Disa valves, coils and plugs this year. The water pump and thermostat were done in 2018.

I think I’ll probably end up with the Andream solution, but for now I’ll keep it relatively simple (and I want to buy dark line rear lights hehe ).

sam.rog

782 posts

80 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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This is as good a place as any to ask. What do you all use to lift the car.
I have the cheap halfords 2t jobby, but it's not ideal with the e91 being so low. I have to drive it onto some shallow ramps to be able to lift it at the front centre jacking point.

I’m looking for something low profile and long enough to reach the front and rear jacking points. Its also used on a gravel drive which isn’t ideal so cant be incredibly heavy as manoeuvring it will be difficult.

Budget is around £200. Preferably less.

Also ordered rear diff oil and a fuel filter for the 330d. Was meant to do it in September at the same time I did the oil and filters, but time and the wether went against me.

Edited by sam.rog on Saturday 29th April 11:53

Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
quotequote all
sam.rog said:
This is as good a place as any to ask. What do you all use to lift the car.
I have the cheap halfords 2t jobby, but it's not ideal with the e91 being so low. I have to drive it onto some shallow ramps to be able to lift it at the front centre jacking point.

I’m looking for something low profile and long enough to reach the front and rear jacking points. Its also used on a gravel drive which isn’t ideal so cant be incredibly heavy as manoeuvring it will be difficult.

Budget is around £200. Preferably less.

Also ordered rear diff oil and a fuel filter for the 330d. Was meant to do it in September at the same time I did the oil and filters, but time and the wether went against me.

Edited by sam.rog on Saturday 29th April 11:53
Mate of mine has one of these:

https://www.sgs-engineering.com/tj3lp-low-profile-...

Works well with low cars and makes it dead easy to get to the central jacking points. I need to invest in one really.

JakeT

5,466 posts

122 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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Nice one, Sam. As mentioned I’d get a usb aux chappy which can live in the armrest.

bodhi

10,755 posts

231 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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My 1 Series only has AUX and no USB, so I'm another with a Bluetooth dongle wired in. I picked up a Sony one about 5 years ago after trying a few of the cheap Amazon specials - it was pricey at £70 but it's proved an excellent investment - pairs first time every time and the sound quality is pretty good too. Don't think it's still available sadly but there may be some second hand ones floating about. Comes with a remote control as well so the lack of steering wheel controls etc is less of an issue.

Only slight issue is that the power socket in my armrest is broken so I need to use the one up front with an adapter to get 2 USBs, then run the AUX cable back to the armrest.

Also if you're looking for a phone mount I can recommend the Kenu Airframe - fits onto the vents and is really simple to mount and unmount. I've got one in both cars now and they are brilliant imo.

Edit// I ended up with this set up - as ever with my stuff it looks a bit messy but performs brilliantly.



Edited by bodhi on Saturday 29th April 15:07

RECr

442 posts

53 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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I use a Pure highway 600, which also allowed Spotify to be controlled from the dash mounted unit. However since a spotify software update it has no longer worked properly in this way, so it now just acts as a Bluetooth receiver.

Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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JakeT said:
Nice one, Sam. As mentioned I’d get a usb aux chappy which can live in the armrest.
Cheers Jake.

I don’t think it has an armrest usb, but I’m guessing that they’re only to power the BT receiver so was going to pop in a usb in the 12v socket instead.

bodhi said:
My 1 Series only has AUX and no USB, so I'm another with a Bluetooth dongle wired in. I picked up a Sony one about 5 years ago after trying a few of the cheap Amazon specials - it was pricey at £70 but it's proved an excellent investment - pairs first time every time and the sound quality is pretty good too. Don't think it's still available sadly but there may be some second hand ones floating about. Comes with a remote control as well so the lack of steering wheel controls etc is less of an issue.

Only slight issue is that the power socket in my armrest is broken so I need to use the one up front with an adapter to get 2 USBs, then run the AUX cable back to the armrest.

Also if you're looking for a phone mount I can recommend the Kenu Airframe - fits onto the vents and is really simple to mount and unmount. I've got one in both cars now and they are brilliant imo.

Edit// I ended up with this set up - as ever with my stuff it looks a bit messy but performs brilliantly.



Edited by bodhi on Saturday 29th April 15:07
Cheers; can’t see anything like yours for sale for now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to get something up and running.

That phone holder looks just the ticket and very discreet when not in use. I looked at a Brodit clips but they pretty much cover an entire air vent.

nipsips

1,163 posts

137 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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Court_S said:
Looks like we’ve agreed a deal on the car with nicer headlights; just waiting to sort dates which depend on a date for his Defender arriving (it’s in the uk awaiting PDI etc).

The car also comes with a set of winters (style 338 by the looks of it).

One more question; it has an aux socket in the glove box but no USB like in my 335i or 130i. I assume that I’m into a world of pain trying to retrofit one. What are the best options to add music streaming; there are loads on eBay / Amazon but I was wonder which ones are tried and tested.
Excellent glad you’ve got it bought!

You’ve got 4 options on the pre LCI…

1 - update the radio to a post 2010 radio and retrofit the USB connector but this will only play iPod music not via any other streaming service (that I could find anyway)

2 - use a FM receiver and a Bluetooth adaptor - sound will be FM quality so be good but no skip control over the unit

3 - use a aux to Bluetooth adaptor - if the car has base audio this will sound rubbish, the aux input for some reason sounds awful in comparison

4 - use a MOST bus unit to emulate a CD changer on the most bus such as a Dension unit - expensive but is the only way to get full functionality and sound quality. I went this way and never looked back.

There’s some images of it in my readers car thread if that helps

Jakg

3,492 posts

170 months

Saturday 29th April 2023
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sam.rog said:
This is as good a place as any to ask. What do you all use to lift the car.
I have the cheap halfords 2t jobby, but it's not ideal with the e91 being so low. I have to drive it onto some shallow ramps to be able to lift it at the front centre jacking point.

I’m looking for something low profile and long enough to reach the front and rear jacking points. Its also used on a gravel drive which isn’t ideal so cant be incredibly heavy as manoeuvring it will be difficult.

Budget is around £200. Preferably less.

Also ordered rear diff oil and a fuel filter for the 330d. Was meant to do it in September at the same time I did the oil and filters, but time and the wether went against me.

Edited by sam.rog on Saturday 29th April 11:53
I've got an Arcan aluminium one and a Sealey RJAS2500 which are basically the same thing - both can reach under my E91 335d slightly lowered with the Bilstein B12 kit.

It's heavy compared to a cheap rubbish jack, but it's much much lighter than a quality steel one. This was an important consideration when it lives miles away in the shed!

Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Sunday 30th April 2023
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nipsips said:
Excellent glad you’ve got it bought!

You’ve got 4 options on the pre LCI…

1 - update the radio to a post 2010 radio and retrofit the USB connector but this will only play iPod music not via any other streaming service (that I could find anyway)

2 - use a FM receiver and a Bluetooth adaptor - sound will be FM quality so be good but no skip control over the unit

3 - use a aux to Bluetooth adaptor - if the car has base audio this will sound rubbish, the aux input for some reason sounds awful in comparison

4 - use a MOST bus unit to emulate a CD changer on the most bus such as a Dension unit - expensive but is the only way to get full functionality and sound quality. I went this way and never looked back.

There’s some images of it in my readers car thread if that helps
Brill, the Denison unit looks good but is quite punchy….and I want dark lines! laugh

I think I’ll go with a receiver that plugs into the 12V socket for now. Not being able to skip songs isn’t the end of the world.

pmorg4

722 posts

118 months

Monday 1st May 2023
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Jakg said:
sam.rog said:
This is as good a place as any to ask. What do you all use to lift the car.
I have the cheap halfords 2t jobby, but it's not ideal with the e91 being so low. I have to drive it onto some shallow ramps to be able to lift it at the front centre jacking point.

I’m looking for something low profile and long enough to reach the front and rear jacking points. Its also used on a gravel drive which isn’t ideal so cant be incredibly heavy as manoeuvring it will be difficult.

Budget is around £200. Preferably less.

Also ordered rear diff oil and a fuel filter for the 330d. Was meant to do it in September at the same time I did the oil and filters, but time and the wether went against me.

Edited by sam.rog on Saturday 29th April 11:53
I've got an Arcan aluminium one and a Sealey RJAS2500 which are basically the same thing - both can reach under my E91 335d slightly lowered with the Bilstein B12 kit.

It's heavy compared to a cheap rubbish jack, but it's much much lighter than a quality steel one. This was an important consideration when it lives miles away in the shed!
I have a similar low profile 3T trolley jack, I don't remember the brand but there are loads of brands which look nearly identical so probably made in the same factory. I'd highly recommend the 3T models over 2T, as although a 2T Jack should be plenty enough for an E91 the 3T models are much more sturdy and stable due to wider footprint, and they have a higher lift height too.

Unfortunately I can't get mine to the central jacking point in the front as despite it being low profile my front bumper is just too low, which is annoying. The problem is that although the jack itself is very low at the front, the car's jacking point is quite far back so most of the length of the jack needs to fit under before you can start lifting. It will go under the rear to lift on the diff no problem and the jacking pads on the sills.

pmorg4

722 posts

118 months

Monday 1st May 2023
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Just replaced my CIC head unit which was regularly rebooting, a common fault on these. One of the causes is a bad hard drive, so I replaced mine with an SSD cloned from the original spinning disk drive, and even set up a QNX virtual machine to perform a file system integrity check on the old drive. When all of that checked out fine I figured the hard drive probably wasn't actually my issue, and sure enough the rebooting persisted.

Although I have a CarPlay upgrade in my car so I rarely use the actual CIC system, when ithe CIC head unit reboots you lose all audio for about 5-10 seconds and this repeats every minute or so.

I ordered a new unit from the ever reliable Quarry Motors who delivered it to me two days later. It's now in the car and working perfectly (following coding to my car's configuration), although if I want to use the factory navigation and voice control I'll need to sort out FSC codes. No hurry for this as I never use those features anyway thanks to CarPlay being far superior for both.

Swervin_Mervin

4,478 posts

240 months

Monday 1st May 2023
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Heard a thunk under the car on Sat, on the M60. Assumed it was a stone but 2mi later the TPMS went off. Did a visual check and heard the hissing from the n/s front. Arse. Decided to try and make it the 2.5mi home on the basis that it could only escape at a fixed (ish) rate and if I didn't hang about I might manage it. Had to crawl the last 200yds or so but managed it without damaging the wheel.



That'll be the hole then. Check out the cracking on the slightly tired F1s!



Thankfully I remembered that I have a spare wheel from the wife's old 125i so.popped that on. It will do to get it to Kwik Fit on Thurs. Steelie-tastic


Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Monday 1st May 2023
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I joined the club for shocks making an entrance into the boot yesterday…loud band in her car yesterday over a drain cover….







All sorted now. Seems to be happening a lot at the mo.

nipsips

1,163 posts

137 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
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Welcome to the rear top mount club!

Tbh I’m amazed more aren’t failing with the state of the roads atm, I’m petrified of cracking a wheel.

Court_S

13,141 posts

179 months

Wednesday 3rd May 2023
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nipsips said:
Welcome to the rear top mount club!

Tbh I’m amazed more aren’t failing with the state of the roads atm, I’m petrified of cracking a wheel.
My fault for being so smug about changing them in the 335i last summer, forgetting that I cheaped out in this! hehe

MajorMantra

1,334 posts

114 months

Thursday 4th May 2023
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https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/listing/14981045

Looks good, although price may raise some eyebrows. Is this one of you lot?