Cuda's Cars, v2.0

[TheBenior]

Names don't mean much anymore to marketing departments.

Witness the dilution of the ///M brand.
"Sport" models of cars that are just graphics and spoilers and wheels.
Heck, Sport modes that do nothing more than make things louder and make the throttle response artificially sharp.

IIRC, BMW and Audi have been doing M-Sport and S-Line packages that have primarily been about appearance for quite some time now.

My MK7.5 GTI's sport mode makes the fake intake noise speaker (SOUNDAKTOR!) louder. I could deactivate it and get an aftermarket intake for real interested noise, but most aftermarket GTI intakes have marginal gains at best without a downpipe and tune (and possibly a bigger turbo like the Golf R's IS38).

Well, it also stiffens up the electronic steering, increases throttle response, and if I had the active suspension and DSG, it would stiffen up the suspension and change the shift points.

I just leave it in Sport mode, which the thankfully lets me do without having to activate it every time I start the car. It's still like a Lexus compared to my old open intake, turbobacked, Mazdaspeed3 with aftermarket engine and trans mounts.

Mine is the Rabbit Edition, which besides the black spoiler, wheels, and mirror caps, let me get the better lighting and safety gizmos of the SE/Autobahn models without spending as much. I think Honda used to do something similar towards the end of model runs with "Special Edition" trims that slotted between an LX and EX.

[CudaMan]

I am in love with the lighting system on my BMW. The just-right-color-temperature self-leveling xenons that turn with the wheel *and* illuminate additional side lights (including while in reverse gear), the courtesy lights underneath the doors and in the door handles themselves, the soft on/off to various lights. Even the shade of amber of the turn signals is better than other cars I've owned.

This is how BMW hooks its customers on its cars despite all their faults. Give them a feature so well thought out and executed, they don't want to live without it. I'm already thinking about an F30 next.

[dodint]

My car has been out of commission since Friday because the light controller (a small computer bolted to the bottom of the headlight housing) which run the xenon's has malfunctioned, so be careful what you wish for.

z4-lift.jpg
z4-lift-2.jpg
z4-lightcontrol.jpg

[CudaMan]

It didn't take long for the Z4 to assume the Standard BMW Position.

Quick Jacks! Jelly.

Knock on wood my E90 has been good to me so far. All computers check out in Carly.

[dodint]

Carly? That's almost too cute.

Ash tried to name the Z4 "Corky" the other day. I wasn't having it.

I'm happy you like the E90. As you know lots of people are gun-shy about out-of-warranty BMW ownership but I think it can be very rewarding.

[CudaMan]

Carly is the app that interfaces with the car, lets me code some things and tells me secret BMW fault codes that a standard OBDII reader won't. The car itself doesn't really have a name, although I've been sometimes referring to it by its color - Tiefseeblau.

I've long been gun-shy about used German car ownership. So many cool cars I wanted but was nervous about owning after some research. I finally worked up the courage to try it. I do have a warranty for some things for a while longer (SULEV warranty covers a surprising amount of stuff), which is a little peace of mind. It also helps that I'm reasonably mechanically competent now - something I couldn't say six years ago. Credit the 300ZX with teaching me to dive in and figure stuff out.

[dodint]

re: Carly; interesting. I'll have to look into it. Other than pulling codes with Torque I don't do much interfacing with systems. I've been considering buying a coding system because if you don't have a factory navigation unit it's tough to make changes to BMWs of that era.

The only BMW we had a warranty for was Ash's E60. It was fun being able to take it to the dealer and just drop it off for simple stuff like a sunroof being knocked off its track. Unfortunately it was out of warranty when the transfer case went.

You've jumped in pretty late. My BMW wrenching went from E24 to E36 to E46 and now E85. You jumped in behind me at E90. Good stuff.

[CudaMan]

Carly is the cheapest "deep dive" BMW solution, short-term anyway (it's now an annual subscription pricing model). It doesn't give you control over absolutely everything like INPA or whatever it is, but it's a simple to use app that uses a proprietary bluetooth OBDII transmitter. I also considered Bimmerworks ProTools, a similar system, which I think can do a few more things. I forget why I didn't go with that. I'm not familiar with Torque.

[dodint]

I use Torque to capture the track data for the videos I make. It's not as good as a true data system but for my puttering around it's nice. It works with any OBD-II Bluetooth reader which is nice. It looks like Carly needs a proprietary connector which is a bummer.

[CudaMan]

Yep. The cheaper solution is INPA or NCS Expert (or both? I'm unclear on the differences) since all you need is a cable and free software but I understand both are not user friendly. App-based stuff is a lot simpler to use so I took the easy button. I was a little nervous about screwing something up with the wrong line of code I found somewhere on the internet... that said I may look into it anyway for a couple of things that Carly doesn't do. So maybe I wasted my money on Carly.