Cars

by wooter on Accessories & Mods, Cars

Changing Z4 license plate lights to OEM LEDs

Ever since BMW launched the 1 series facelift and EfficientDynamics on quite alot of cars in their range in 2007, BMW also has started to use LEDs in different places to replace the old incandescent bulbs.

One such location are the license plate lights.  BMW employs for all their recent models now a version with two integrated LED bulbs which give a whiter kind of light, even with a hint of blue.

Tuning and styling fanatics of course wanted to mimic this new style (and the use of LEDs on competitors such as Audi’s headlights) and a few aftermarket options are already available for the BMW range.

However, if you get the correct parts, the OEM BMW parts can be fitted on cars which did not come with the LED versions of the license plate lights.  This can work for pre-facelift 1-series and pre-EfficientDynamics 3-series cars, but also for 6-series and even the previous model Z4.

… →

 
by wooter on BMW, How-To, Z4

Perspective view on a MK4 BMW navigation

If you have a BMW MK4 satellite navigation system, you can upgrade to one of the later versions of the operating system to access the 3D perspective viewpoint on top of the 2D viewpoint.

The steps to do this are:

  1. Get to the secret settings menu.  You do this by going into the Settings menu and holding the MENU button down for about 10 seconds.  When you see this menu, scroll down until you see Perspective where you can select whether you want this option activated or not
  2. Go out of this menu and go into the NAVIGATION menu.  In the Viewpoints, you now have three choices: north, driving direction or perspective mode.  Select the last one and see the map turn into 3D.
 
by wooter on Accessories & Mods, BMW, Gadgets, How-To, Ipod, Z4

Intravee Ipod-adapter in a BMW Z4 RoadsterIntravee Ipod-adapter in een BMW Z4 Roadster

Intravee

The Intravee is an innovative piece of hardware that enables BMW’s of the previous generation to accept Ipods as sound source, and use the radio and steering controls to navigate through the Ipod’s structure.  This Intravee enables E39 5-series, E46 3-series, the first model of X3’s and the first model of Z4 roadster and coupe owners to enjoy their Ipod in their car.

… →

 
by wooter on Cars

Belgian Taxes, fiscal horsepowerBelgisch belastingsstelsel, fiscale pk

The Belgian tax system has its oddities. One of them is what they call “fiscal horsepower”. It is an interesting but blunt tool to define which cars are fast, and therefore should be taxed higher than others.

Accelleration is the combination of power and mass of the object you want to move. Most cars that are known to be fast are known because of their higher rate of acceleration – most normal cars can do high speeds too, if you just wait long enough for it.

So the Belgian government came with a formula to figure this out in an easy to chart number: the fiscal horsepower of a car.

This number is calculated by the next formula:

(cilinder content in liters times 4) + (weight of the car divided by 400)

Just in case if anyone’s interested in figuring out how much taxes they need to pay on their next ride.

Update:
The Belgian tax people changed their formula, and scrapped the weight of the car out of it. All info is here.

 
css.php