Q About The Power Outlet In The Front Cupholder Section...

...Is there any way to program the car so the power going to this outlet goes off when the car is turned off? I like to keep my phone recharger plugged in there but I'm finding that, even with the catr turned off it still provides power to the A/C phone charger (the blue light on the charger remains on). A I don't want to leave something plugged in which is drawing power and possibly running the battery down I'm unplugging the charger when I get out of the car.

Is there a way to program this so that it shuts off when the car shuts off?

Can anyone give me a brief explanation of how to send a destination from Google maps to the car? Again, I didn't find the manual as helpful here as I had hoped.

Another question. Is there any way to get the nav system to read out the road you're currently traveling on? And even though I have "traffic flow" checked" in the map/nav menu I can't see (or perhaps I'm not understanding) the display of traffic on the nav map. Occassionaly I see some triangles by the road I'm traveling on but these triangles are not colored so, while I suspect this may have something to do with traffic flow, it's not clear what it's trying to tell me. I have to say my Acura was much better with this stuff. Roads were shown with green/yellow/red lines next to them to tell you how traffic was flowing. I looked in the manual but I didn't find that to be much help. Hoping you guys can give me a little tutorial that will be a bit more clear.

TIA.

Originally Posted by PsychDoc1

...Is there any way to program the car so the power going to this outlet goes off when the car is turned off? I like to keep my phone recharger plugged in there but I'm finding that, even with the catr turned off it still provides power to the A/C phone charger (the blue light on the charger remains on). A I don't want to leave something plugged in which is drawing power and possibly running the battery down I'm unplugging the charger when I get out of the car.

Is there a way to program this so that it shuts off when the car shuts off?

Another question. Is there any way to get the nav system to read out the road you're currently traveling on? And even though I have "traffic flow" checked" in the map/nav menu I can't see (or perhaps I'm not understanding) the display of traffic on the nav map. Occassionaly I see some triangles by the road I'm traveling on but these triangles are not colored so, while I suspect this may have something to do with traffic flow, it's not clear what it's trying to tell me. I have to say my Acura was much better with this stuff. Roads were shown with green/yellow/red lines next to them to tell you how traffic was flowing. I looked in the manual but I didn't find that to be much help. Hoping you guys can give me a little tutorial that will be a bit more clear.

TIA.

There is no way to program the outlet that I am aware of. The outlet under the glovebox may turn off in eight minutes, but I don't think it does. You can connect an after market outlet or perhaps the one under the glovebox to the fuse panel so that it goes off with the accessories. I posted instructions on how to make that connection for a radar detector. See
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...302&highlight=.

Set the right side of the screen to display the navigation arrow. It will show navigation turn information as well as the name of the street you are on. If you don't have a navigation destination, it will show your current location including the street name. I programmed one of my eight programmable buttons to display the navigation arrow on the right side. I programmed another to show current audio system selection on the right. A programmed a third to show the route listing on the left and a fourth to show the map on the left. It's very convenient.

There is a dedicated traffic display as well as triangles on the regular navigation display as well as a traffic problems list display. Be careful that you don't have the nav system set up to automatically reroute you around traffic.

Google Maps to iDrive instructions:
Enter an address in Google Maps on your computer
When the map is displayed on your screen click on the drop down menu that says "more" and select send. Then select Car, enter make and under BMW assist account name enter your email address you provided for your BMW assist account. Then hit send.
Address should show up in iDrive about 2-3 minutes later under messages.
Works really well! I use it all the time.

Traffic in iDrive: You need to have traffic options enabled. If you do AND you are navigating to a destination using iDrive the triangle will turn red in case there is a traffic problem on your route. iDrive will automatically re-route if you select that option. In case you are not navigating using iDrive but just want to know traffic conditions around your location click on the triangle and it will display a list as well as indicate with colors on the map.

PsychDoc,
This may answer some of your questions on the Navigation system's traffic notifications:
http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Conte...I/RTTIFAQ.aspx

The legend for all of the Real-time Traffic Information icons are also posted under
this link.

I have my Valentine 1 plugged in that outlet so I know what you mean. Power stays on only for about 6-8 minutes if you lock the door a little longer I think if you just close and don't lock. It's annoying, but only going to cause a problem if you make a lot of short trips and your battery doesn't have enough time for a full charge. The thing I hate is that it also powers up when you open the doors or trunk. Don't really understand that piece of logic.


[QUOTE=PsychDoc1;6230474]...Is there any way to program the car so the power going to this outlet goes off when the car is turned off? I like to keep my phone recharger plugged in there but I'm finding that, even with the catr turned off it still provides power to the A/C phone charger (the blue light on the charger remains on). A I don't want to leave something plugged in which is drawing power and possibly running the battery down I'm unplugging the charger when I get out of the car.

Thanks for the help guys. I played with all this stuff and I think I was able to answer my questions. For any of you wanting to know...
1) The A/C outlet in the front cup holder assembly only remains powered for a few minutes after the doors are locked so there is no problem leaving a phone charger/radar detector/etc. plugged in there.
2) To get the right side of the display to read out any number of functions just move the idrive controller to the right after you have the map up on the whole screen. This will bring you to a dialog box that allows you to place a check in "split screen." Once checked you will now see two separate screens. Once you highlight the right hand screen again you just press down the idrive controller and you get a list of possible things the right screen can display. Just scroll up or down this display, select the information you want and press down to check the selection of your choice. Presto, what you want is now in the right hand panel of the display.
3) Sending info from Google maps to the car couldn't be easier. Just go to Google.com, click Maps, type in the address you want to get to, click "More" under Options, then click send to car, then enter your account (typically your regular email account address) and the make/model of the car and then click "Send." Within a minute or two it's in the car's message center waiting to be confirmed as your new destination. Works like a charm.

Still trying to figure out when traffic triangles are displayed on the map screen and what the symbols mean but I'm sure I'll get it.

Originally Posted by PsychDoc1

Thanks for the help guys. I played with all this stuff and I think I was able to answer my questions. For any of you wanting to know...
1) The A/C outlet in the front cup holder assembly only remains powered for a few minutes after the doors are locked so there is no problem leaving a phone charger/radar detector/etc. plugged in there.
2) To get the right side of the display to read out any number of functions just move the idrive controller to the right after you have the map up on the whole screen. This will bring you to a dialog box that allows you to place a check in "split screen." Once checked you will now see two separate screens. Once you highlight the right hand screen again you just press down the idrive controller and you get a list of possible things the right screen can display. Just scroll up or down this display, select the information you want and press down to check the selection of your choice. Presto, what you want is now in the right hand panel of the display.
3) Sending info from Google maps to the car couldn't be easier. Just go to Google.com, click Maps, type in the address you want to get to, click "More" under Options, then click send to car, then enter your account (typically your regular email account address) and the make/model of the car and then click "Send." Within a minute or two it's in the car's message center waiting to be confirmed as your new destination. Works like a charm.

Still trying to figure out when traffic triangles are displayed on the map screen and what the symbols mean but I'm sure I'll get it.

Doc, there is a pretty good review of the RTTI (Real Time Traffic Information) on the BMW web site: http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Conte...I/RTTIFAQ.aspx
Including FAQs like "What is the meaning of the arrows and icons in the map view and traffic incident detail view?"