I have owned a few BMWs from this era and pretty much all of them have had the little clips fall off or break off making it impossible to adjust where the air conditioning is pointing. Luckily, there are a cheap repair kits like this that will take care of this issue in no time. For me, making the car enjoyable and comfortable to use daily is keeps bringing me back to it and these little fixes is what makes a big difference.
Category: BMWs
BMW 3 Series (E92) Reverse Camera Install DIY
After installing the wireless CarPlay on my BMW 335i, the only thing that was missing was the reverse camera. Fortunately, this was a very easy add on thanks to the add-on I had already installed in the camera. This $35 dollar camera functions as you would expect and has great quality for the price. Install took me about 90 minutes total and it’s definitely worth it to make the car a lot more modern. Hope it helps you install yours as well!
The Truth About My BMW 335i
Engine Rebuild
Believe it or not, it has been almost 2 years since I got this car and so far I’ve only put on a few thousand miles on it. It’s not because I don’t like driving it or anything like that, but because I got it with a blown engine that tool some time to rebuild. The N55 engine in this BMW 335i was completely destroyed and I learned a ton rebuilding it. It was one of the most fun winter projects I’ve done in a while. I ran into some issues and had to redo a few things, but that’s part of the process. Check out the entire playlist to see it start to finish!
Done Since Rebuild:
Anyway, what has been done since the engine rebuilt? In all honestly, not too much. I have painted the air intake to match the nice engine and make sure no rust or paint chips go into the engine. I replaced, registered and coded the battery to make sure it starts every time and installed Apple CarPlay to make it more modern and enjoyable to drive daily.
What stopping me from driving it all the time:
So, why haven’t I been driving it as much as my BMW Z4 or the i3? Well, the biggest factor for me has been that air conditioning not working. I have attempted to fix it and was not able to find the leak with the bumper and panels in place, so me driving this car has been limited to cold days and evenings.
The second biggest reason has been the front of the car. Not only is the bumper hanging and catches on stuff, but the headlights and the fenders are also in very poor state. As you can see the headlights are glazed and not very clear and the fenders have re-cracked in the location where they have been fixed before.
The next one is fairly minor, but at certain engine load, the car will stutter a little bit on acceleration. I’ve scanned the car already and found a valvetronic code, so I’ll be investigating that as well.
The last biggest annoyance with driving this car has been the exhaust. While I like loud and throaty exhaust and this one sounds almost decent on startup, someone has cut out the mufflers on it and it sounds horrible at higher speed. The drone of the exhaust kills all the fun of driving this car over 45 MPH as it encapsulates the entire cabin.
Plan for the future:
Alright and finally let’s talk about my plan for this BMW! No, I will not be installing the M4 style bumper on this car, but I will be installing this aftermarket M-Sport bumper just like the original OEM. Well, except this one isn’t ripped and hasn’t been repaired a few times in the past. To go with the bumper, I will be replacing the fenders as it was cheaper to buy new aftermarket ones than to fix the original cracked ones. During this process, I will look into the air conditioner again as I could hear it hissing in the general area behind the bumper and it will be the perfect time to find what the issue is. Once I test fit all the parts and make sure everything works well, I’ll take it to a body shop to get painted and hopefully fix the rest of the paint on the car at the same time. After the body shop, I’ll buff out the headlights to make them look new again and try to figure out why the left headlight doesn’t level itself properly making it difficult to drive at night.
Once the car is looking better, it will be time to make it sound great also. For that reason, I have bought this complete exhaust system that I will be installing myself. I CANNOT wait to get this installed and hear what it sounds like! This is stainless steel construction with no welding required and should make a huge difference for drivability and comfort.
A few other minor common issues on these cars I will have to fix are the broken cup holders and the seat belt extender, which are both very easy to replace.
So, there you have it guys, the truth is that I have been saving up to get the parts I needed and wanted so that I can finally finish the transformation. I can’t wait to get working on this and I’m hoping to have everything done in the next couple of months. If you’d like to follow this car from the start, check out my previous videos, subscribe if you’d like to see what happens next and I hope to see you in the next one!
Top 15 Useful BMW i3 Hidden Features
- Key and Key fob
We’ll start with some simple ones for those newer to BMWs and the I3. This seemingly simple key actually has many hidden features. Everyone knows you can roll down your windows and sun roof on most BMWs by just holding the unlock button for a few seconds, but did you also know there is a physical key that has a couple of features of its own? Not only can it open the driver’s door, it can also lower and raise the windows if you hold it all the way to the right or left. Well, only the front windows, the rears are fixed in.
A couple other fun key features I found is that if you hit the lock button on your key fob when the windows are opened a little, it will go back up inch by inch and if you have a European version , you can just hold the lock button to close them completely. If your car is plugged into a charger and you lock it, you will also see the charge status. Lastly, if you hit the lock button twice within 10 seconds, it will DE-activate the tilt alarm and the interior motion sensor. Great for leaving a dog in the car.
- Door Handle
Speaking of leaving things in the car, you don’t have to open the rear door to put something in the back. You can use this handy handle on the back of the seat to lean it forward like in a 2-door car. However, if you do open the door and look in the corner here, you fill find that you have some pull tabs behind a cover. There are these manual pulls all over the car. You can open the charging port, the front trunk and fuel filler door.
- Fuel cap and charge port has a spot to be stored
While we are here at the fuel door, when you fill your car with either gas or electricity, don’t let the cap dangle, there is a built-in spot to keep them off the paint.
Interior:
- Telescoping steering column
Switching over to the interior and controls, there are some fun ones here as well! For example, I recently learned that the steering wheel is not only adjustable up and down, but it’s also telescopic!? How cool!
- Turn Signal Cancel
Some of the features you use daily also have little tricks behind them. For example, when using a turn signal, you don’t have to push it the opposite direction and turn on the other one accidentally, you can simply tap in the same direction to cancel it. I know it solves a problem that BMW has created by changing how their turn signals work, but cool nonetheless.
- Follow me home and parking lights
You can also use this stalk to turn on follow me home lights by pushing the stalk away from you. Your low beams will stay on for 30 seconds. This is also why I upgraded mine to LEDs.
Similarly, you can turn on parking lights by pushing the stalk up or down. Left or right side of the car will stay on. Great for street parking or parking in an alley.
- Put car in neutral/skip neutral
Switching to the other side of the steering wheel, there are a couple of features here as well. You can skip Neutral when selecting Drive or Reverse by pushing the gear change lever past the first click. This one is easy to find after driving the car for a while, but how do you put the car in Neutral? You would think you can just pop it in N and turn it off… but it just goes to Park on its own. To do so, hold the gear lever and the power button for 3 seconds and the release both. Now you are in neutral and car is off.
- Can turn on radio when car is off
There are a couple of tricks with the entertainment system as well. As an example, you can power on the radio with the car off by simply hitting the volume/power button.
- Shortcut Buttons
Just to the right of the power button, we have some preset buttons, but what most people don’t know is that you don’t have to use it for radio, you can use it as a shortcut for almost anything in the system. For example, you can make one of them toggle the Hold State of Charge aka turn on the Range Extender or dim the control panel brightness or even switch to different music sources and much more. Fun fact, if you’d like to reset all of them, simply hold 1 and 8 at the same time.
- Hidden menu
Ok, ok, I hear some of you screaming that you know all of these already, but did you know that this small city car has a drift mode!?
Ok, it’s not actually called a drift mode, but there is a hidden menu that gives you tons of additional information and allows you to enable a roller mode where it will turn off the traction control, stability control, ABS and regenerative braking giving you full control of the rear wheels!
Getting into the hidden menu is fairly simple, you just hold the trip reset button for a few seconds and you are in! Here you can find a few options, including the roller mode which you can press and hold to enable. You can also unlock this menu for a ton more information, like your battery capacity, temperature and other specs not otherwise advertised. To unlock it, enter the sum of the last 5 digits of your VIN and you are in! I will do a full video on this as I think it deserves a deeper dive. We can even check out the CiC iDrive service menu in that video as well. Let me know if that is something you’d be interested in seeing.
- Coat Hanger
- Power plug
If you haven’t seen my camera install video, you might not know that there is a power plug right under the air vents, super convenient for charging your phone. Also, there is a hidden coat hanger behind this little cover. All you have to do is flip it around.
Engine/Driving:
The last few items I wanted to mention have to do with the engine, driving and storing the vehicle.
One features that’s hard to figure out yourself as a driver is that when braking really hard, the car will also illuminate the lower lights, giving more of a warning to the cars behind, but not only that, if you open the rear hatch and your lights are no longer visible, the lower set will take over and work as regular lights and brakes! Great thinking on BMW’s part here!
- Rex Emissions Mode
- You can check oil level unlike other BMWs
Luckily BMW did more thinking around the range extender engine which leads me to the next hidden feature, you can put the car in emissions mode. This will turn on the engine and run it for 20 minutes to bring it up to operating temperatures and prepare systems for emissions testing. Your battery charge has to be under 75% as it will charge the battery as a side effect. Could be useful in an emergency! To turn it on, open the hatch, turn on the ignition and then press the accelerator pedal 3 times and hold on the third. Release and press the brake button followed by the Start and Stop button. The engine will start at this point. Another fun fact about this motorcycle engine is that it actually has an oil dip stick, so you can check the oil level unlike most other BMWs. Nice!
- Long storage hidden feature, hack:
The very last trick that could be useful for some has to do with storing a BMW i3 over longer time. BMW says not to allow the vehicle to sit idle for extended period of time on low charge, so it must be close to fully charged to be stored. This will work great for the high voltage battery, but you will still be risking killing the 12v battery since simply having the car plugged in will not charge it. So, to circumvent this, what you can do is set up a departure time once a week, this will power on the car and charge your 12v battery at the same time saving you a headache in the future.
Summary:
Wow this turned out to be a pretty long video! So, I hope you have learned something new or interesting about a BMW i3 and if you are a hardcore enthusiast, I’d love to hear some of the things I’ve missed. Also, if you’d like to access some more truly hidden features, check out this video where I show you how to code your car for more range, true control of the range extender and even adding a sport mode! Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one!
BMW R NineT Tail Tidy Install
Ever since I got my BMW R NineT, I have been dreaming about cleaning up the rear of the bike and getting rid of the stock fender, brake light and turn signals. With the NewRageCycles’ fender eliminator kit, I was able to do that in about and hour and it looks 100% better! I’m very impressed with the kit and love how it turned out. The kit also hides the license plate under the seat cleaning up the look even more. This tail tidy kit works on all BMW R NineT bikes and there is no need to remove the passenger foot pegs or make any permanent changes to the bike. This is completely reversible.
Cracked BMW Z4 Headlight Fix – Headlight Removal and Lens Replacement
This isn’t a video I planned on making, but after my headlight got cracked in multiple places, I had to do something! So, I decided to replace the lens on my #BMWZ4 headlight instead of buying a new or used. Not only did I save a lot of money by replacing the headlight lens myself, but I’ve also learned a new skill! This isn’t an easy DIY as it requires a lot patience and time to get it done. You will have to cut off the existing lens with an oscillating tool, heat the sealant holding it in place and remove it small piece at a time. Once the lens is fully removed, the sealant glue has to be removed from the groove and that’s easier said than done. Once again, lots of heat, stabbing with a flat head screwdriver is required to get it all out. You’re still not done as now you have to install thew new butyl headlamp sealant in the groove and install the lens with lots of heat, of course! Only once it all cures, can you reinstall the headlight back into the BMW.
How to lift BMW i3 onto Jack Stands – BMW i3 Lifting Points
Working on your vehicle can be very rewarding, but it also has to be safe. In today’s video, I will show you how to lift your BMW i3 onto jack stands from start to finish. You will not need any extra tools other than a standard floor jack, 4 jack stands and BMW jack pads if your car requires those. Luckily BMW i3 is a very stiff car and we can utilize that to our advantage when putting it on jack stands. In the video I use the front control arm to balance and lift the vehicle slightly, it’s important to make sure you do not put too much weight on it and definitely do not lift from that point without the car already being supported. Same goes for the other side and the rear suspension components.
BMW i3 Big Screen Upgrade – Installing & Coding 10.25″ Display DIY
The navigation screen on my BMW i3 was one of the small 6.5″ units that just dated the car for me and I never liked these on any BMWs. Luckily, there are still some large screens available for sale brand new that make this upgrade an easy job. In this video I show you how to remove and replace the display on the BMW i3, code the car using 2 different methods to accept the larger screen and what do to if you have an aftermarket Apple CarPlay unit installed like MMIPrime. This upgrade make a huge difference in the world of BMW i3s as you get to experience the iDrive system, maps, navigation and even CarPlay and Android Auto in full 10 inch glory and much better contract ration and colors.
BMW i3 Carbon Wrapped Dash
My BMW i3 came with the base level hard plastic dash panels that were not treated very nicely by the previous owner. One of them had many scratches and discoloration and make the entire interior look shabby. So, I decided to wrap the dash pieces in carbon fiber vinyl to modernize the look on this pre-LCI BMW i3. I think they turned out great and really give the car a new look. This isn’t a how-to video, more of a showcase of how it turned out after my first attempt at wrapping anything. I used the below tools to remove the panels from the car as well as a heatgun (hair dryer works too) and a squeegee. This entire project cost me $10 and less than 2 hours of my time.
Fixing BMW i3 Start/Stop Button for $5 DIY
I looked for a fix to this very simple problem, but was not able to find any videos or solutions. However, I did find a decal that would solve the problem for me! It was $10 for 2 of them and all you have to do is remove the old residue, clean the button with rubbing alcohol and put the new one on. If yours is as bad as mine, you will have to color in the edges, but if it isn’t scrape a little less than what I did. The start/stop button on this BMW i3 is now fixed and is actually transparent where the words are, so it looks like OEM.