[tyler9595]

Originally Posted by slubu

That's horrible dude, I would keep track of your payments. BMW should compensate you for the diminished car. That is just not right.

thanks. but, I dont think my dealership has any real intention of helping to resolve the problem in any way. I have talked to them and they basically told me the problem is all in my head...so for now, I am out in the wind.

I'm eager to know if nautilian and/or ezatnova have heard anything new...

[ezatnova]

Tyler, to answer your ?'s

- I've said it before and I'll say it again - I believe Nautilian was captured and is being detained by German engineers employed by BMW. He was the ONE who had supposedly found the fix for 29.2, then he announces it will be "mere hours" before he can divulge all relevant information...then he disappears from the face of the earth. Not good.

- As for me (make sure you're sitting down), I have STILL NOT HEARD A FRIGGIN THING from my dealer. I bugged them Friday and they told me to chill and that they are all aware of (and sounds like they acknowledge) the problem, and they will let me know when BMW tells them anything.

I shall wait, and be as patient as I can be, and near the end of the month, I will just get the damn Dinan or wait a few more days for a Conforti flash and tell them never-friggin-mind.

There is more than one way to skin this 29.2 cat...but some just cost $2,000

Last point - as it stands now,meyergru is our best hope. He has the PUMA case open and they've had his car for like a damn week now.

[meyergru]

Originally Posted by ezatnova

Last point - as it stands now,meyergru is our best hope. He has the PUMA case open and they've had his car for like a damn week now.

I fear, I'll have to burst your bubbles - although I don't know for sure yet.

Today, I got a call that the car will not be ready before tomorrow. I asked for the reason and another foreman than my usual one told me that they will have to program the control units one-by-one, which will take some time.

He did not know if they are about to merely downgrade it, but to me, this sounds like they have resorted to do just that. If they already had a fixed DME software upgrade, they could just program this unit and be done with it.

I'll report when I have definitive facts.

[Sniz]

I emailed my SA regarding 29.2, he did not respond.

Great post I know.

[Quisp]

I just chatted with Evan at Tischer and he confirmed that it is the v81 that cant be upgraded and my car should be fine. I apologize for the post and not having the right info. I believed my dealer and now i believe he doesnt know what he is talking about. Sorry for stressing you guys.

[d3l0n]

i think its cuz bmw recongizes the boost gain and is like oh shit that would kill sales on our 550i/650i and m3 models

[iScream]

I rode with the tech expert this afternoon. Here is the news (not much you don't already know):

1. I do have 29.2 for sure

2. he acknowledged the lag when I explained/demonstrated how >3k today drives like >1500 used to -- this is important because he drove the car a couple weeks ago and, not being an everyday 335i manual driver, he had said it was fine. (It does feel fine, for a turbo car, if you don't know the car well.)

3. v30 is the latest, and due to some kind of internal systems upgrade, no new versions are planned "for a while"

4. ...therefore, not much my local guy can do about it right now, if it is indeed caused by software.

5. So, it's in the shop for a couple days so they can do all the FASTA stuff for a PUMA case, which I requested.

6. It is not possible/permitted to downgrade it, no matter how much I/he wants to do so.

At this point, I don't care if my car is the guinea pig, as long as they fix this soon. Being on a lease, I can look at the last month as a waste of my monthly payment, with the car in the shop for more than a week and driving like an A4 turbo the rest of the time. This is to say nothing of the 3-4 MPG loss in gas mileage over the last 800 miles, at upwards of $4.50 a gallon, which translates to an extra $25-30/mo in gas costs, not to mention the money they waste providing me a loaner. Hopefully BMW will get some more cases and start dealing with this problem.

I also won't rule out the possibility that it could be something that is not software related. The important part is that I was finally able to demonstrate it to a live person, and that they hopefully will be able to get to the bottom of it, whether 29.2 is causing it or not.

I'm not going to get pissy about false advertising and such (although I have pointed it out, so they know I find it unacceptable) until and unless I get some sort of "just deal with it" type answer.

[StarrDlux]

well dinan would downgrade it back to 27

[RBBMWE46M3]

Originally Posted by StarrDlux

well dinan would downgrade it back to 27

Yea for 2000$. The car I test drove last Feb....07 335xi was fast enough, the car I bought 08 335xi is not the same car I test drove.

[baxtr]

Originally Posted by StarrDlux

well dinan would downgrade it back to 27

Dinan should sell a downgrade tune, for say $200, nothing extra just v27 without any tweaks. I'd gladly pay for that, at this point.

[tyler9595]

Originally Posted by ezatnova

Tyler, to answer your ?'s...Last point - as it stands now,meyergru is our best hope. He has the PUMA case open and they've had his car for like a damn week now.

thanks ezatnova...I think I will stop by my dealership this morning and bug my sa about this bs again...can't hurt...

Im ignorant...what exactly is fasta and puma? I wanna tell the sa to take my car and don't call me until it is fixed...

[meyergru]

Well.

After a full week in the shop (not counting the days to get the upgrade), my car is back.

As I already suspected, they downgraded it to whatever was current at build date (9/2007), I assume v27.02.02. This measure is neither officially recommended nor authorized, it was done on my car only because it is a PUMA case. They just wanted to know if a downgrade would really fix the problem - and it did, not much to my surprise. The foreman told me of his impressions and said that the car even sounds different than with v30 (I did not tell him that) and he could now make the wheels break loose at traffic lights.

The car is back to normal operation, no lag at all, sauf the fact that my 6FL USB audio interface does not work at all. That will hopefully be fixed in a few days.

The foreman told me that BMW engineers are at a loss to what is the DME problem and are only now beginning to work on a cure. Apparently, v30 was not even intended to be a fix for the problems introduced with v29.2. This was the reason why they could provide no "upgrade" fix in a short time. So, you will have to wait and hope for the best.

He promised to keep me informed and tell me when there is a software fix for both problems, USB and DME.

[ezatnova]

Originally Posted by meyergru

Well.

After a full week in the shop (not counting the days to get the upgrade), my car is back.

As I already suspected, they downgraded it to whatever was current at build date (9/2007), I assume v27.02.02. This measure is neither officially recommended nor authorized, it was done on my car only because it is a PUMA case. They just wanted to know if a downgrade would really fix the problem - and it did, not much to my surprise. The foreman told me of his impressions and said that the car even sounds different than with v30 (I did not tell him that) and he could now make the wheels break loose at traffic lights.

The car is back to normal operation, no lag at all, sauf the fact that my 6FL USB audio interface does not work at all. That will hopefully be fixed in a few days.

The foreman told me that BMW engineers are at a loss to what is the DME problem and are only now beginning to work on a cure. Apparently, v30 was not even intended to be a fix for the problems introduced with v29.2. This was the reason why they could provide no "upgrade" fix in a short time. So, you will have to wait and hope for the best.

He promised to keep me informed and tell me when there is a software fix for both problems, USB and DME.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. Pretty much confirms what our fears and speculation has been...that there isn't some magic new progman fix that exists now (or anytime in the very near future). Sad news, and very disapointing, but good to hear a solid answer for once, which is more than 99% of people here are getting from their service departments.

Well, if Dinan had stock, I'd be buying it up right now. That seems like our only "safe" fix for this mess for a while.

[ezatnova]

Originally Posted by tyler9595

thanks ezatnova...I think I will stop by my dealership this morning and bug my sa about this bs again...can't hurt...

Im ignorant...what exactly is fasta and puma? I wanna tell the sa to take my car and don't call me until it is fixed...

I can't give an ultra technical explanatino of FASTA and PUMA, but, basically, FASTA is an ultra detailed, full data pull from the car. It sends the info to BMW HQ and is beyond what your local dealer deals with. This is also the pulls they do to try and screw people out of their warranty if a piggy/tune is detected, btw.
A PUMA case is essentially an elevated fix-me-now and concentrate efforts to resolve it sort of case.

[slubu]

Ridiculous. If Shiv can figure out how to get rid of the lag with V3, how in the world can't BMW engineers who designed the damn thing figure it out? BMW as a whole has really messed up here, because in the long run they are encouraging people to go out and get the JB3, the V3 and Dinan not only for the performance enhancement, but for the stock like "no lag" that BMW advertises and stands by. Again, ridiculous.

[meyergru]

Originally Posted by slubu

If Shiv can figure out how to get rid of the lag with V3, how in the world can't BMW engineers who designed the damn thing figure it out?

It appears to me that the changes they made to the wastegate duty cycle (in order to reduce rattles) did not seem sufficient to them in order to make a difference big enough to explain such side-effects. The engineers were more like "it can't be the software change, maybe it's all in the customer's head", and would have been too happy if the downgrade did not fix the problem. But now I have two foremen backing me up and the engineers are just beginning to accept that there is a real problem. They're back to square one now.

I would expect them to have tested the effects of the change, but as my foreman has told me, my car is one of only a few to show these problems. He would not accept the many reports from USA regarding this topic, since he argues they use another software for pollution regulatory reasons, so it cannot be compared directly (this is weak, I know).

Even some people here say they don't feel it at all or think it's neglectable.

So, it seems like some other factor than just the software itself might add up to actually cause the lag. As long as they cannot identify that factor, they are unlikely to just throw out the changes they have done from v28 to v29.2, at least as long as they don't know which specific change caused the problem. Some of the changes adressed protection against tampering with piggybacks and/or tunes and it could well be these changes that cause the trouble.

Noelle, Dinan and Vishnu have it easier: They just go back to pre-29.2 (in the case of Vishnu: pre-29.2 behaviour), since they don't really care about those new functions.

I agree on that such protection features should never interfere with normal operation (also, rattles do not justify possible lag). Looks kinda like when Microsoft's activation servers had gone wild and several Windows installations stopped working.

[tyler9595]

Originally Posted by meyergru

Well.

After a full week in the shop (not counting the days to get the upgrade), my car is back.

As I already suspected, they downgraded it to whatever was current at build date (9/2007), I assume v27.02.02. This measure is neither officially recommended nor authorized, it was done on my car only because it is a PUMA case. They just wanted to know if a downgrade would really fix the problem - and it did, not much to my surprise. The foreman told me of his impressions and said that the car even sounds different than with v30 (I did not tell him that) and he could now make the wheels break loose at traffic lights.

The car is back to normal operation, no lag at all, sauf the fact that my 6FL USB audio interface does not work at all. That will hopefully be fixed in a few days.

The foreman told me that BMW engineers are at a loss to what is the DME problem and are only now beginning to work on a cure. Apparently, v30 was not even intended to be a fix for the problems introduced with v29.2. This was the reason why they could provide no "upgrade" fix in a short time. So, you will have to wait and hope for the best.

He promised to keep me informed and tell me when there is a software fix for both problems, USB and DME.

meyergru - I tried to get my dealership to downgrade me from 29.2 and they said 'no'. How did you talk your dealership into doing this for you???????

[meyergru]

Originally Posted by tyler9595

meyergru - I tried to get my dealership to downgrade me from 29.2 and they said 'no'. How did you talk your dealership into doing this for you???????

I did not have to do anything like that.

In february, I had a problem with USB audio which my dealership could not fix. They told me that I should use only recommended USB sticks from the 6FL info document and that there is no newer software to fix it. Since BMW does not recommend USB sticks in that document, and I already tried two different sticks in vain, I demanded a recommendation of BMW customer service.

They referred me back to my dealership, but in such a case, this is already escalated to some customer relationship foreman, not a normal foreman. So, the order to fix the problem came from BMW themselves.

The foreman called me and told me that, yes, there was a problem and that in the meantime, there was a new software that should fix it. Knowing that 29.2 was out and that this could cause problems, I asked him if this already was the newer v30, which was supposed to no longer have the lag problem. He told me that it was v30.

So, after getting updated (and lagged), I simply told him that now, there was a second problem with the first one not even really fixed.

He took in the car, acknowledged the lag problem and asked BMW for permission to downgrade. The rest of the story is known.

BMW simply could not deny to fix a problem which already got escalated to the dealer because BMW wanted to keep its house clean in the first place. My foreman was very relaxed about this as he knew that either BMW engineers would have to fix the problem or that they had to give him permission to downgrade. As this was a PUMA case, they go great lengths to solve such problems. Also, this was the 3rd time they tried to fix the problem...

However, it is not the shop's choice to downgrade, they need explicit permission from BMW to do so and normally, this will not be given. Rather than that, they will now start finding a general way to fix this problem and make that available, when it is ready. They would not have downgraded my car either, they just wanted to verify if this would really fix the problem and presumably, to get FASTA data from "normal" as well as from "lagged" state from the same car. Call me guinea pig.

[iScream]

Originally Posted by meyergru

It appears to me that the changes they made to the wastegate duty cycle (in order to reduce rattles) did not seem sufficient to them in order to make a difference big enough to explain such side-effects. The engineers were more like "it can't be the software change, maybe it's all in the customer's head", and would have been too happy if the downgrade did not fix the problem. But now I have two foremen backing me up and the engineers are just beginning to accept that there is a real problem. They're back to square one now.

I would expect them to have tested the effects of the change, but as my foreman has told me, my car is one of only a few to show these problems. He would not accept the many reports from USA regarding this topic, since he argues they use another software for pollution regulatory reasons, so it cannot be compared directly (this is weak, I know).

Even some people here say they don't feel it at all or think it's neglectable.

So, it seems like some other factor than just the software itself might add up to actually cause the lag. As long as they cannot identify that factor, they are unlikely to just throw out the changes they have done from v28 to v29.2, at least as long as they don't know which specific change caused the problem. Some of the changes adressed protection against tampering with piggybacks and/or tunes and it could well be these changes that cause the trouble.

Noelle, Dinan and Vishnu have it easier: They just go back to pre-29.2 (in the case of Vishnu: pre-29.2 behaviour), since they don't really care about those new functions.

I agree on that such protection features may should never interfere with normal operation (also, rattles do not justify possible lag). Looks kinda like when Microsoft's activation servers had gone wild and several Windows installations stopped working.

What a breakthrough. Are you comfortable providing us your PUMA case number (either posted or PM'd), so that we can tell our service departments to refer to it? I think my shop foreman seems like a reasonable enough guy that he'd at least call BMW and tell them to consider the striking similarities between your case and mine. Thanks for all the info!

[i2iSTUDIOS]

I talked to my SA, he said that I was the 2nd person to complain about LAG. He said that if he had a machine still loaded with v27 he would move me back but he doesn't. All machines have v30 on it

[meyergru]

Originally Posted by i2iSTUDIOS

I talked to my SA, he said that I was the 2nd person to complain about LAG. He said that if he had a machine still loaded with v27 he would move me back but he doesn't. All machines have v30 on it

Yup. Contrary to wide belief, I have been told that there were few complaints in Germany as well. Seems like the complaints have not been making it through yet.

Normally, dealerships cannot downgrade at will, but need permission and special technical equipment to do that (which was present at my dealership thanks to the BMW factory being nearby). Downgrading is a time-consuming process after all, since all units have to be re-programmed one-by-one.

Thus, it will be better for you to wait for an "upgrade" to fix it.

And: No, alas, I have not been told the PUMA number. I doubt that it would help to get you downgraded, either, as they say they use different software over here in Europe.

[tyler9595]

Originally Posted by iScream

What a breakthrough. Are you comfortable providing us your PUMA case number (either posted or PM'd), so that we can tell our service departments to refer to it? I think my shop foreman seems like a reasonable enough guy that he'd at least call BMW and tell them to consider the striking similarities between your case and mine. Thanks for all the info!

iScream, that is a great idea!

meyergru, do you think your dealer would give you the number? I bet that would be our best chance of getting our dealers to help us with our laggy cars over here in the US...I, for one, am feeling like the option of waiting for a fix is not a great option...my lease is up in October.