BMW E36 Blog

I know that it’s usually hard to choose a specific wheel/rim style for your car. You usually start looking at other cars like yours and try to find the best wheel style that fits this car and feel like it’s going to make the car look hot. Unfortunately, many times you end up buying wheels that don’t really look good on your car and since these are usually expensive ones, you will not try to change them unless you get a very good deal to exchange them with another set and pay a little bit more.

This happened to me many times but if I had a list of some possible choices for my car, I would have avoided such mistakes too many times. Today, I gathered 15 different rims that look really nice (well, not all of them) and they are supposed to help you make a choice.

I added a ranking under everyone of these styles, but please don’t feel disappointed if I gave a low rank for a wheel that you really like. This is just my opinion and what I like best may not be the rule for everyone else. I hope you find this list useful for you in case you’re unhappy about your car wheels and you’re considering a change real soon.

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BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

This is the second post in the series of how to create a device to turn your BMW lights on automatically when it gets dark. In the first post Turning Your BMW Lights On Automatically At Night, we’ve seen how it is possible to control a light using an electronic circuit that is sensitive to light. In that post, the idea was to create a circuit that will turn your BMW lights on when it gets dark and the videos proved to you that this can be done.

Today, I found the electronic circuit that can be used to create such a controller device. Take a look at this and please excuse the bad quality of the photo, I had to take it with my mobile camera instead of a scanner (it’s from a book):

Now for those of you who do not know anything about electronics, here’s an explanation:

To build this circuit, you will need the following:
1. PnP Transistor.
2. Battery (No, don’t buy one, you already have it under the hood).
3. Relay.
4. Variable Resistor (50 Kilo Ω (Ohms))
5. Light Sensitive Resistor.

Now, to understand how this circuit works, simply imagine the transistor as a switch that can be operated electrically by applying current to its base (the point in the middle), so, when we apply current to the transistor base, it will close the circuit on the other two points. This means that the battery and the relay will be in a closed circuit which makes the relay trigger and then turn the car lights on.

Now, how can we use light to trigger the transistor base? It’s simple. The resistance of the light sensitive resistor changes according to the light intensity. Its resistance becomes almost zero (0 Ohms) when there’s light and it becomes very high when it’s dark. So, using this circuit, the light sensitive resistor will trigger the transistor base when it’s dark.

I’m sure that you’re asking what is the benefit of the variable resistor, right? It’s used to control how sensitive this circuit is going to be for light. So, if you find that the car lights are being too sensitive, try to adjust this variable resistor and this problem will be fixed.

I hope you liked this second part of the series, please have a magnificent day guys and remember to stay tuned for the next posts on the BMW E36 Blog.

Update: I have reviewed the electronic circuit one more time and it seems that it has a problem, I’ve changed the circuit from the original post and I also changed the needed parts to implement it.

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

I’m almost sure that everyone has seen the new cars that turn their lights on automatically when they go inside a dark tunnel or some other dark places. For me, I’ve seen this too many times and I have to admit that this option is very useful and at the same time very cool to add for our BMW cars. The only problem with this idea (you may call it a wish if you like) as far as I know is that our cars are old and this option was not available at their production time. Taking this into account, I was wondering how hard it would be to implement such an option without crying at the front door of BMW engineers. I’ve a little background about electronics and I believe this is definitely something that can be done, not by me maybe, but I’m sure it can be done.

To prove this, I’ve made some digging for information about light sensors and after overwhelming results about motion detectors and such stuff, I managed to find three sample videos that can prove this is possible and I believe it’s even easy (well, let’s not get carried away, let’s say "not hard" :D).

Take a look at the following videos:

The way I see it, this electronic circuit should:

1. Work at 12-Volts: It should rely on the car’s battery to run
2. It can be overridden: I think A tri-switch would be sufficient for this, hmmm . . . where can I get such a switch?

3. It should have some delay in response: This is important to avoid light flickering.

I hope you like this idea. Now I will need to try and find some specific details on how to implement it, so please stay tuned. I will keep you posted.

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

I’ve been looking for a diagnosis tool for BMW E36 cars and while doing so, I’ve heard a lot about different diagnosis tools and about how weak and inefficient they are at spotting problems and running diagnosis correctly on BMW cars (BMW E36 cars in particular). Such tools usually give you wrong diagnosis which will end up with you paying too much money to change parts that do not need changing at all. Today, I found this Carsoft diagnosis tool (now called "BMW Ultimate Pro 1.0") and it seems to be a very good and reliable tool.

I know that you may be relying on your OBC Check button to do some simple diagnosis for your car, but if you’re looking for a very deep and detailed diagnosis tool. I think the Carsoft diagnosis tool is the TOOL for you. It can run diagnosis for different modules of your BMW E36 like Digital Petrol Engine Control Unit (DME diagnosis),  Digital Diesel Engine Control Unit (DDE diagnosis), Automatic Gear Box Control Unit (EGS diagnosis), ABS/ASC (Brake & Traction diagnosis), AIRBAG diagnosis, HKL (Air Conditioning diagnosis), BC/MID (On Board Computer/Multi Information Display diagnosis), IC (Instrument Cluster diagnosis), LCM/CCM (All Light & Check Control Modules diagnosis), LOD (This is a really long list of diagnosis 😆 ), ZKE/ZVM (Central Body Electronics diagnosis), EWS (Immobilize System diagnosis), CVM (Cabrio Soft Top diagnosis) plus other diagnosis for newer model of BMW cars. If you want to read a full-review of this tool, go here.

Here’s some sample screenshots of the tool in action:

And these are some diagnosis results:

And here’s some photos of the Carsoft Diagnosis tool package:

I’ve tried to find out how to order the Carsoft diagnosis tool and I ended up on this website, but they are requesting you to fly to Belgium to get your tool 😆 LOOOL!. I’m sure these guys are just kidding.  Anyway the price of the tool is $120 (shipping included), but I will have to find out how I can order it. So, stay tuned, I hope I will be back soon to you with more information about how to order this tool online.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.

If you like to fix your BMW E36 electrical issues which normally happen very often and you don’t like to visit electricians almost all the time, then you must have the BMW E36 fuse box diagram. These diagrams can come in handy especially if your window regulator relay goes bad. The fuse box diagram is usually found under the cover of your fuse box, but unfortunately, it’s not always there. That happens because of two possible reasons. The first, is that it has fallen off and you didn’t notice it or maybe you got the car like this. The second reason is because you don’t have a fuse box cover 😆 (like me before I bought mine).

So, if you don’t have that fuse diagram then this post was made for you. I have found the fuse box layouts for both BMW E36 325i and the BMW E36 318is.

This is the 325i fuse box diagram:

And this is the relay diagram from the Bentley Manual:

And this is the 318is diagram:

I suggest that you either bookmark this article for later reference or at least print it and keep a copy of it inside your car and maybe stick it inside your fuse box cover. Have fun!

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.