[cda888]

Originally Posted by meyergru

Today, there was an article in the german car mag "Autobild". Sorry, no link.

BMW has admitted that they changed v29.2 in order to reduce wastegate rattle. O.K., this was a know fact. They state that the induced delay (aka "Lag (tm)") is ~150ms, which "For sure, no customer will notice.". Boy, were they wrong.

Furthermore, they say that cars from MY08 (Build dates from 09/07 on) have different turbos and wastegates which will not develop have those problems.

MSD81 cars (from build dates 03/08 on) do have a different software than MDS80 ones which does not require those changes (because they always have new turbos) and thus have no delay. Autobild has measured and verified that for an MSD81 car, although (this is info from the reporter himself and not in the article) maximum torque came only from 1700 RPM and he said he had expected more initial thrust. Everything else (i.e. power, elasticity and acceleration figures) was just as it was with the car they measured back in 2006.

BMW plans to bring out a downgrade software for MSD80 cars which fixes the Lag but can cause wastegate rattling again for cars with old turbos (i.e. before 09/07). I don't know if these will be replaced if this happens - maybe they hope the problem develops after end of warranty.

I am lucky enough to have a MY08 09/07 build date and will downgrade as soon as possible after release of the software.

Okay, I am officially confused. I thought that 29.2 was introduced sometime in April of 2008, and that as long as you had a build date prior to that and had not had a software update, you did not have the 29.2 lag.

My build date is 10/07, and I have not had a software update. According to the info above, that means that I have the improved wastegate "hardware." What is unclear is whether I also have the pre 29.2 software from the factory, or if the factory installed 29.2 or a later version.

I ask because I have only ever driven my car, but from the day I got it I observed that the "thump" doesn't hit until somewhere between 2k -3k rpms. Is that consistent with the experience of those who have had their cars downgraded to 29.2? Those of you with the original 29.1xxx, where do you feel the power rush kick in?