[jamesp]

I've got a weird problem, and it hasn't show often as the car is typically not parked outside.

I have a January build F30 335i M-Sport with nearly every feature. If I park it in the sun for a few hours it comes up with the following warnings on start:

Rear-end collision warning failure
Pedestrian warning
Front camera

These are the front-end safety systems (rear-end means when you're about to run up the rear of the car in front, pedestrian warning is when a pedestrian is about to step out in front of you). The front cameras all seem to work fine but I'm guessing these features are all controlled by the one in the rear view mirror housing?

I've only had the car a few months and it's only happened a few times. Today I realised the common condition - it's when it's parked outside in the sun. Today it was only 12C outside and I had the errors when re-starting, but once I'd driven it 50k's or so then restarted after parking in the shade it was fine. Last week I was house hunting, parked in the sun while inspecting a house for sale and the errors came up. The car doesn't usually get driven during the weekends (pity) and during the week it goes from garage to underground park.

I've just moved interstate and will need to find a BMW dealer here willing to do a warranty job for a car they didn't sell, but has anyone seen this before? A quick Google and search on here didn't show anything.

[Flakmunky]

The January builds are notorious for these sort of problems...

[glaziaj1]

I the heat my navi screen dims to the point I cant see it, after the car cools off it will go back to normal.. Dealer has replaced the screen but its still doing it and they claim nothing can be done the screen is just overheating.
Funny my $100 tomtom never did that

[dmath]

Originally Posted by glaziaj1

I the heat my navi screen dims to the point I cant see it, after the car cools off it will go back to normal.. Dealer has replaced the screen but its still doing it and they claim nothing can be done the screen is just overheating.
Funny my $100 tomtom never did that

I live in Florida and mine doesn't do that. Doesn't seem normal and shouldn't be acceptable to them.

[jamesp]

More strangeness - I have auto headlights with auto high beam / adaptive beam.
They're now pretty much permanently on. Are they controlled by the same camera?

Booked to visit a dealer next week.

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by Flakmunky

The January builds are notorious for these sort of problems...

I found a dealer in Sydney who was happy to look at the problem as a warranty claim.

Of course it was the first overcast day in Sydney for weeks, but I had photographs of the iDrive screen with the errors on it. They were unable to reproduce due to the lack of sunshine so contacted BMW on the issue.

Apparently this is a small VIN range issue related to thresholds in the photocell associated with the camera, it's not a module fault but there will be a software update to alter the thresholds around November.

So the problem is a known fault but with limited lucky people such as myself, and will be fixed late this year in a software update I will need to leave the car with them two days to install. Should have bought that Tesla and got a small patch delivered over the air while it was in the garage at night

Good service and communication from the dealer, but at the end of the day this isn't that impressive, fault appears in January cars and not fixed for 10 months even though it's just a software fix.

[kommy]

Hey James, did you end up getting your camera fixed? Had the same issue yesterday on my car after parking in the sun all day. My car is an August 2014 build.

[paul223]

If they are altering software threshold, they are altering safety threshold at the same time I think.

Originally Posted by jamesp

I found a dealer in Sydney who was happy to look at the problem as a warranty claim.

Of course it was the first overcast day in Sydney for weeks, but I had photographs of the iDrive screen with the errors on it. They were unable to reproduce due to the lack of sunshine so contacted BMW on the issue.

Apparently this is a small VIN range issue related to thresholds in the photocell associated with the camera, it's not a module fault but there will be a software update to alter the thresholds around November.

So the problem is a known fault but with limited lucky people such as myself, and will be fixed late this year in a software update I will need to leave the car with them two days to install. Should have bought that Tesla and got a small patch delivered over the air while it was in the garage at night

Good service and communication from the dealer, but at the end of the day this isn't that impressive, fault appears in January cars and not fixed for 10 months even though it's just a software fix.

[jamesp]

Last month the dealer applied a new software version, they had to keep it overnight (they had the car for 3 days in total) and it hasn't re-occurred.

There's a good chance that this alters safety thresholds as well - the dealer wasn't able to give me much information on the problem or solution.

[jamesp]

This car is turning out to be a lemon, todays fault is "Chassis function restricted" and the suspension is locked in sport mode.

Just too many little rattles, continuous computer faults and annoyances. I never had this level of ongoing issue with any previous Japanese car or the Audi A5 I owned before it.

[Golden Arrow]

Originally Posted by jamesp

This car is turning out to be a lemon, todays fault is "Chassis function restricted" and the suspension is locked in sport mode.

Just too many little rattles, continuous computer faults and annoyances. I never had this level of ongoing issue with any previous Japanese car or the Audi A5 I owned before it.

If it's under warranty, annoy your dealer's service department to bits until they fix everything.

[paul223]

Originally Posted by jamesp

This car is turning out to be a lemon, todays fault is "Chassis function restricted" and the suspension is locked in sport mode.

Just too many little rattles, continuous computer faults and annoyances. I never had this level of ongoing issue with any previous Japanese car or the Audi A5 I owned before it.

Complain to bmwna, stress about how unsafe you feel in car with electric problems, make them feel guilty. I have, they took my f10 back, mbusa took gl320 back too.

[jamesp]

Ok, so they didn't fix the camera issue with a software update (what a surprise), first time in a month I've parked it in the sun - for only 10 minutes, and all the camera problems are back.

Also there's a suspension sensor on order from Germany.

[PennSt8]

Originally Posted by paul223

Complain to bmwna, stress about how unsafe you feel in car with electric problems, make them feel guilty. I have, they took my f10 back, mbusa took gl320 back too.

OP is in Australia

Good luck with the repair...hopefully they get it sorted quickly.

[jamesp]

Update on this issue, it has now been in 5 times to fix, and this current visit it has been in 8 days so far (haven't received it back yet).

I've had some pretty astounding excuses from BMW like "you wouldn't leave your DSLR in the sun and expect it to work, this is no different", and "we have one customer whose car fails in heavy rain - you wouldn't expect your DSLR to work in heavy rain". I have the tech pack which includes the lane departure warning and active headlights, so it's the higher spec camera.

Through all this BMW Australia steadfastly refuse to swap the camera module to see if that's the fault. Every time it's a "software fix", which doesn't fix it.

I've had this issue for two years (some weeks it will happen every time I start the car, also sometimes when entering or exiting tunnels, often while reversing on a sunny day) and it has soured my experience with BMW - the cars and the brand. I can't sell the car privately and it's not worth a trade-in at the moment. The first photograph I have of the issue shows 450km on the odometer but I'm pretty sure it first happened in the first week.

[sandwi54]

Originally Posted by jamesp

Update on this issue, it has now been in 5 times to fix, and this current visit it has been in 8 days so far (haven't received it back yet).

I've had some pretty astounding excuses from BMW like "you wouldn't leave your DSLR in the sun and expect it to work, this is no different", and "we have one customer whose car fails in heavy rain - you wouldn't expect your DSLR to work in heavy rain". I have the tech pack which includes the lane departure warning and active headlights, so it's the higher spec camera.

Through all this BMW Australia steadfastly refuse to swap the camera module to see if that's the fault. Every time it's a "software fix", which doesn't fix it.

I've had this issue for two years (some weeks it will happen every time I start the car, also sometimes when entering or exiting tunnels, often while reversing on a sunny day) and it has soured my experience with BMW - the cars and the brand. I can't sell the car privately and it's not worth a trade-in at the moment. The first photograph I have of the issue shows 450km on the odometer but I'm pretty sure it first happened in the first week.

You need to get a lawyer involved at this point. BMW Australia was feeding complete BS to you. ALL electrical components in cars have to be automotive grade, which means they need to pass AEC compliance to be certified for use in automotive applications. A DSLR is a consumer equipment which has much less stringent compliance requirement than the same camera that goes into a car.

Time to engage with a lemon law lawyer.

[knightsabers]

BMW and their software update fixes

Had an issue with my side mirrors not folding out, dealer believes a software updates would fix it. Took it back & forth, 3-4 times before I got it replaced at another dealer.


Good luck with fixing the issue

[808AWD325xi]

Strange, they acknowledge the issue on other models...

[jamesp]

That's fascinating that they don't mention the F30. Mine's an F30 335i M-Sport 2014 model, manufactured January 2014 in SA.

As an update, it spent two weeks hooked up to BMW at the dealer. They tried repeatedly updating the software and parameters presumably as per above, and eventually managed to brick the NBT. The dealer replaced the NBT with a new one from BMW's local stock, and then they re-programmed it.

Hugely disappointed that they didn't load the latest maps, or enabled traffic (which came out on the F30 a few months after delivery of my car) or any of those things that would have been slight compensation to two years of messing me around.

Finally, after doing all they could possibly do to avoid replacing the KAFAS camera, after two years of me pointing out that they should consider replacing the camera, they've ordered one from Germany. I've got my car back for the two weeks it will take them to get one in.

Disgusted that it's taken them two years to get to this stage, after repeatedly trying to blame me for it. Disgusted that they even suggested that this wasn't an outdoors car and I shouldn't park it in the sun and expect it to work.

This is the worst customer service experience I've ever had with any car brand (and I've owned Audi, Saab, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Holden, Toyota and Mazda cars).

[jamesp]

Another update, after 7 attempts now, which included replacing the NBT and KAFAS 2 camera, I parked the car in the sun this week on a 22C day and all the "intelligent safety" features failed again when I went to start it after 2 hours.

I had a few weeks since its last visit to the dealer where the car was barely used so it hadn't shown up since then.

I've now had the car for over two years with the issue being present from the first week. I have no confidence in BMW ever fully fixing this problem, and not parking it in the sun is not an option here. I've asked the dealer to approach BMW regarding compensation or a even refund, but there's no lemon laws here in Australia so I doubt they will do the right thing (they've shown no inclination to so far).

The fact that I've seen no other reports of this happening suggests it's not expected behaviour, not that it would be acceptable if BMW suggested that it is. The sun shines in Australia with some regularity so it would be not fit for purpose to never park the car outside.

At the moment, if anyone finds this thread on Google because they're having a similar issue, BMW has no fix for it and you're on your own.