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How to disable BMW M5 Active Sound technology
Unlike the M5 E60, which had an outstanding engine/exhaust sound produced by one of the best BMW engines ever, the famous 5.0 liters V10 naturally aspirated engine, the 2012 M5 F10 has under the bonnet a 4.4 liters turbocharged smaller unit. In terms of performance this new block, has immense power and torque output, and it’s a high revving block with linear and instaneous acceleration, with most of the 680 NM of torque available from just 1500 rpm. But it lacks the sporty feeling when being floored. Most of the M5 fans seem to be upset about the fact that the sound feeling has been almost completely ignored by the BMW engineers.
In this direction, the BMW M division engineers, have developed a new technology for the M5, to produce a louder and sportier engine sound in the cabin, by adding a new sound layer in the car’s audio system. This technology is called Active sound, and tries to enhance the sound, by giving a more burble V8 feeling.
BMW claims the system provides an “extremely accurate impression of current engine load” and that the sound has been optimized to spread across the entire cabin. Not only that, but when Sport or Sport+ is engaged, the sound inside the M5 is enhanced and perfectly sequenced with induction, engine and exhaust noises
How to disable active sound BMW M5 technology
One of the BMW M5 F10 owners has decided to check, what would be the difference in the cabin, if the active sound is disabled by pulling the Fuse #200 rated 40 amps, from the fuses box, located in the right side of the trunk, near the battery.
Excessive inside rear tire wear
BMW rear tire wear
A tehnical problem i found is quite common among BMW 5 series owners, is the excessive inside rear tire wear. This occurs mainly for cars fitted with large REAR tires like 275 to 285, and my car was the case too. As you can see in the attached photo, my rear tires face a sever wear on the inside.
The inside wear can be caused by multiple things, and a very possible cause can be the wheel geometry alignment. But after some research, it seems that after 50-100K km (range of the car, not tires) depending of the quality of the road where you drove your BMW 5 series, a small part should be changed prevently in the REAR SUSPENSION.
It is a BALL joint (bmw code 33 32 6 767 748) and it is the part with number 2 in the below rear suspension scheme. So i replaced these 2 ball joints (left and right) and had the wheel alignment again. This seems to have solved the inside wear of the rear tires.
535d E60 access comfort issue
I had a problem with the access comfort system on my BMW E60 535d pre-LCI. Access comfort option is the option of opening/closing the doors and starting the engine just by having the BMW key in your pocket. A sensor detects if the fob key in the nearby area and does the authentication with the car electronic systems. Each door handle has an access comfort sensor fitted.
So my problem was that the driver’s door refused to open/close some times or even triggers the other doors to close/open at some weird intervals. The second nasty part was that the I-drive started to throw errors regarding a “high battery drain”.
I changed the key’s battery and also removed the error using a BMW tester, but the errors still occurred. I read on some forums, that the actual handle sensor should be replaced , which is roughly around 220 euros.
The part is no1 from the below picture.
BMW e60 access comfort handle
After a few attempts, i found the solution and it was to replace the car’s main battery. I fitted a more powerful and bigger battery BOSCH battery unit with 110Ah instead of the usual 90Ah OEM, that comes from BMW factory. Since then no more problems with high battery drain messages and Access comfort issues