BMW E36 Blog

As you may know, I’m relying on the advertisements to cover the BMW E36 Blog expenses like disk space and bandwidth and those advertisements are what is keeping this blog running. Today, I have realized that BMW E36 Blog is consuming more and more bandwidth. This is a good sign meaning that I’m getting more readers than I used to, but at the same time, it means more and more money to pay for the bandwidth. So, I’ve decided to push some of my advertising spots hoping that I will get some more advertisers to help me in this. For those of you who may be interested in advertising on this blog, there are some spots that are currently open for advertisers. So, if you’re interested, please check my advertising page here.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW BMW E36 information source.

Hey friends, I have found a thread on bimmerforums with this question "You know you DON’T drive an e36 when" and this thread received some very funny responses that I thought you have to see it. It’s really funny and true at the same time. If you think that some of these are not true, then maybe you’re not driving your BMW E36 the way you should. I suggest you go and have a BMW E36 driving course … Enjoy

You know you DON’T drive an e36 when:
…You meet the minimum balance requirement on your checking account.
…You don’t have any “check” lights on in your car.
…You haven’t been checked out by a chick while driving.
…You have a house.
…You only have one car year round.
…You don’t have any speeding tickets.
…You have a solid relationship with a girl, and they say you DO give them enough attention.
…when you know you can drive further because gas mileage is so much better.
…when you are not afraid to put down the windows and have it break on you all the time.
…when you aren’t afraid of constant minor problems.
…when you get tired of driving after an hour.
…you get a good nights sleep every night because your not up till 4am fixing your car.
…when you drive an e46.
…Your headliner doesn’t sag.
…You can open the door with the least amount of effort.
…There’s no blue and white badge at the front.
…A power window switch doesn’t cost $100.
…when you press the “Window Up” button, and the window goes up.
…when you go over a bump and don’t hear SQEAKRATTLESHAKEBANGCRASHSQEAKRATTLE.
…when you park your car and walk away from it without looking back at it and thinking to yourself “****ing sexy…”
…when you drive with the top down through less-than-fortunate neighborhoods and don’t get flipped off.
…when you pull up to someone else with an E36 and they acknowledge you, instead of looking down or to the side pretending to not notice you.
…when you cut a hard turn and your car flips over.
…when you cut a hard turn and your ball joint breaks.
…when you go to a repair shop and don’t have to be escorted out by ambulance due to heart attack.
…when you can afford more than one new mod/repair a month.
…when people don’t chuck crescent wrenches at you when you drive by (yeah, uh huh, happened).
…when you have angel eyes/projectors and other E3 owners don’t look at them like “OMG I never knew that was an option!”.
…when you fill up for less than $50.
…when an oil change is <$20.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW BMW E36 information source.

I’ve found this video on YouTube and I thought I’d share it with you guys. The idea behind this is to make your E36 headlights (Angel Eyes) circles fade out. In the case of this video, the lights fade out using  the car alarm. But I’ve heard about some guys who connected their angel eyes circles to the internal room light of their cars. In this case, the angel eyes will light up when you open your door and they’ll fade out after you close the door in  second or two. Brilliant idea isn’t it? I know that many will ask me for a DIY (Do It Yourself) on how to accomplish this, but until now, I don’t have one. So, I hope I will post a DIY for it soon. Stay tuned I hope it won’t take long.

Now, I will leave you with the video…Check it out!

I hope you liked the video . . . if not, come on let’s see your videos 😉

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW BMW E36 information source.

Yesterday, I’ve taken my car to run a full-diagnosis for it. The diagnosis came back to me with two problems. First, the knock sensor which apparently needs to be replaced, but it seems like a hard job and I need to do some research before jumping into it. The second problem was with my airbag sensor. Actually, the right sensor was not running correctly and that what was causing the airbag light to keep flashing in my dashboard. So, if your airbag light keeps flashing for like 5 minutes after starting the car and then goes away, it’s more likely to have one of the sensors damaged and needs to be replaced. Of course, this doesn’t mean that this is the only reason that can cause the airbag light to keep flashing, but I guess this is one of the most common causes. Just run a diagnosis for your car and replace it if it was reported. After all, your safety is the most important thing, right?

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

Hi Guys, One of the issues that were annoying me about my car is the OBC (On Board Computer) check button. Whenever I press that button, I was receiving this row of orange squares that I didn’t know what they meant. After a while, I thought this meant the car was ok and that there’s nothing wrong to report until today when I found an article that’s talking about this exact problem and how to unlock the check functionality. It turned out that the row of orange boxes (which looks like a full battery) meant that the check functionality is disabled in the car and that you have to enable it simply by following some easy steps.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

To unlock your car’s check button functionality:

1. Hold down 1000 and 10 to get access to the hidden menus. [TEST –]

Note: please notice that this may not work if you didn’t unlock the hidden menus in your OBC using TEST 19. If you don’t know how to do this, please refer to my previous post BMW On Board Computer (OBD) secrets!.

2. Enter 11, and press Set/Reset. You will notice this on the OBC screen [EINHEIT 1: xx] (xx will be a number)
3. Change this EINHEIT 1 value to 71, using the 10 and 1 buttons, then press Set/Reset.
4. Press the 1000 button once to move to the next value which is [EINHEIT 2 xx] (xx will be a number)
5. Change this EINHEIT 2 value to FF, using the 10 and 1 buttons, then press Set/Reset.

Note: I’ve found that this value was already set correctly on my OBC.

6. After that, just press your "check" button.

I’ve tried this on my car and I have to admit it didn’t work completely as expected. Now, I receive this "Check Control Inactive" error which apparently trying to tell me that I’m one step short from making this work on my car.

Video of my car OBC after unlocking check functionality

So, if anyone can help with this, please let me know.

If your car is:
325i 1994 or 318is 1993: Set EINHEIT 1 value to 71
320i 1994: Set EINHEIT 1 value to 7B
328i 1995: Set EINHEIT 1 value to BA
M3 1997,1998: Set EINHEIT 1 value to B3

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.