On Sunday I asked the question, "Maintenance Reminders: Are they making us lazy, or are they keeping our cars better cared for?" and there were mixed results. Mostly, though, you thought as I do: It's best to be aware, but at the end of the day, having a computer tell you what to do is a handy back-up.
Trouble is, sometimes you encounter a problem soon after taking preventative action. For example, Friday night, some 48 hours before this warning, I checked the tire pressures on the M3 before a slightly spirited run through SoCal (which we'll get to in another post).
At this reading the driver side rear tire read 28 psi instead of the 35 the door sticker wanted. I gave it a visual inspection, rolling the car back and forth, saw nothing hit the closest gas station, got back up to 35 psi, and then drove the 4 miles home.
The M3 is at Stokes now, we'll know more soon.
Follow the jump for more pictures of the warning systems BMW employs for this issue.
Mike Magrath, Vehicle Testing Assistant @ 10,565 miles
cr_driver says:
12:48 PM, 10/13/09
Maintenance and technology, keep up the good work. Thumbs up!
esoterica says:
03:58 PM, 10/13/09
Wonder why BMW doesn't use a more sophisticated system like Cadillac that tells you the exact tire pressures of each tire.
super_ongoy says:
08:20 PM, 10/13/09
Time to b1tch slap this car and tell it to sock it! Complaints, complaints, complaints, me, me, me... Shut up already before I pee in the gas tank! I knew the M3 was whiny but I didn't think it was this bad. Geeesh...
94_gsr_cpe says:
04:38 AM, 10/14/09
I like friendly maintanance reminders cause I know I dont do a complete systems analysis everytime i step into my car. There are definately things that i overlook and tire pressure is probably one of them.