[borris-bear]

Hi All

Just bought my first F10 a 530D (have come from an F31 335D).

I have a few questions around the iDrive system and versions etc.

While looking for the car i tested another cars same year 2016 '60 with my USB thumbdrive which was in the F30 and it worked fine even showed a small thumbnail of the cover art on the car i finally bought it wont read the usb (turns out it wont read the NTFS format a FAT32 one is fine) and doesnt show the cover art. Is this just an update required to the iDrive??

Secondly i appear to have all the options to do the iDrive upgrade from the USB in the glovebox but dont have the software update option under settings again was there on one of the other cars i looked at same year 2010 '60.

Is there a way to do the update myself the dealers said it would take about 3 hours therefore around £400 to do bit annoying as other cars same age can update for free via a download and a usb stick!

hope someone can shed some light

thanks

[wcr3d]

OK first, is it a 2010 or 2016?
Mine has no problem with NTFS,but why not just reformat?
There is a very minor update for IDrive downloadable from BMW website but it is not for what you want.
The update the dealer spoke of is more of an upgrade vs the update via USB.
Now for the upgrade if you decide this route. These are meant to fix buggy software.
People who have went this route report that a high percentage actually cause more problems than it fixes.

[borris-bear]

sorry all should read 2010.

Cant reformat the USB drive as its a 64GB drive FAT32 will only work up to 32GB so will have to buy a new one not the end of the world but was hoping an update would resolve.
When i put my VIN in the update section of the website it doesnt display any software and i dont have the software update part in the iDrive though i do have the relevant options and the usb interface in the centre console and the glovebox.

Do you know what the upgrade from the dealer would actually change? change to the look? added options or functionality?

thanks again for the replies

[bigshout]

In 2010 when the first f10s came to market BMW weren't ready for the combox so early cars came with a mulf and tcu boxes for Comms, these were the same as which came with the e series cars ?

Around 6 months into product they moved to the combox and it's then then that all the good stuff such as album art and Bluetooth streaming came in. I know this because I fell into the same trap. The wiring for the mics on the mulf were simply twisted together in the plug so BMW fully intended to release the F10 with the combox but didn't/ couldn't. There are retrofits you can do to overcome this. It requires hardware, combox and harness plus coding.

I've completed this on my car and haven't regretted it. My car came with £13k of options so plenty of other options most f10 weren't speced with.

[wcr3d]

As I said, the upgrade is to fix not add.
There are hardware limits you just can't change with software.
If you want the newer, research IDrive retrofit. Just be warned, it's pricey.

[EL Jeffe 5]

Pictures first then answers