Hello from the other side of the world
Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:38 am
Hi all, Kieran here from NZ. I recently bought a sapphire black 2005 E53 3.0d with the sportpac and pan roof options, as I wanted a better tow vehicle for my rally car than my now-departed Nissan Pathfinder. When comparing the price of the E53's against other urban assault vehicles in the same price bracket, it really was a pointless comparison - nothing else towed as well as the X5 (thanks to the sheer torque, 6 speed ZF and the stiff suspension) nor was anything as good to drive.
I'm someone who has an incessant need to tinker with and modify cars, so I was pretty stoked to see that there are so many things that can be customised by coding - so I got straight into purchasing a USB K+DCAN cable and the DIS / Progman / INPA / WinKFP / NCS Expert suite. I then sorted out a couple of minor issues with the car (replaced broken thermostat and aux water pump) and started coding some minor stuff... things like turning the aux heater into an independent heater (for which the info on Xdrivers was a huge help), one-touch lane change indication, auto closing of the pan roof if it detects rain, etc. Then I got cocky and tried to flash a newer daten to the trans ECU - but I will save that for another thread!
I'm someone who has an incessant need to tinker with and modify cars, so I was pretty stoked to see that there are so many things that can be customised by coding - so I got straight into purchasing a USB K+DCAN cable and the DIS / Progman / INPA / WinKFP / NCS Expert suite. I then sorted out a couple of minor issues with the car (replaced broken thermostat and aux water pump) and started coding some minor stuff... things like turning the aux heater into an independent heater (for which the info on Xdrivers was a huge help), one-touch lane change indication, auto closing of the pan roof if it detects rain, etc. Then I got cocky and tried to flash a newer daten to the trans ECU - but I will save that for another thread!
