[bmwsinceday1]

People,

Any way to add an (aftermarket) temp sensor for engine temp monitoring? There is no such guage on my car and it really would be a nice feature, to know what your temp is.

Thanks, people.

[kkasson]

If you're just wanting to monitor temporarily, you could use the dashboard "hidden menu" to watch the coolant temp. You can also use Torque or a similar smartphone app with a cheap OBD dongle.

Neither of those work well long term, but it's also not super useful to watch long term. The "normal" temp of the engine gets pretty close to the overheating temp, so it's not super useful to monitor it. It can get as high as 112 C during normal operation, and the yellow overheat warning will trigger at 120 C.

[bmwsinceday1]

Originally Posted by kkasson

If you're just wanting to monitor temporarily, you could use the dashboard "hidden menu" to watch the coolant temp. You can also use Torque or a similar smartphone app with a cheap OBD dongle.

Neither of those work well long term, but it's also not super useful to watch long term. The "normal" temp of the engine gets pretty close to the overheating temp, so it's not super useful to monitor it. It can get as high as 112 C during normal operation, and the yellow overheat warning will trigger at 120 C.

Wow, I didnt know that! Thanks, Kasson. So, sounds like worrying about engine temp/possible overheating is "covered" by the computer? Meaning, a warning light should illuminate? And if so, when that light shows up would it be too late to avoid an engine catastrophe?

Maybe Im worrying too much........

[kkasson]

Correct, the best way is just to let it warn you.

If it overheats you'll get a yellow warning at 120 degrees and a red warning quickly after that at 130 degrees.

The N52 will put itself in limp mode when it overheats and will reduce the power to protect itself. It's pretty successful at doing that - you don't want to keep driving when that happens but you have enough time to pull over safely and turn it off. Engine damage is always possible but it's really rare on the N52, unlike previous generations where overheating was pretty bad.

There is one thing you can do though - the electric water pump will start throwing error codes for a couple weeks before it actually fails. Other than coolant leaks that's pretty much the only way they overheat. A generic OBD scanner won't find those codes, but something that can read the BMW hex codes will show them. If you don't have a scanner like that already you can search around the forum for some options.

[bmwsinceday1]

Originally Posted by kkasson

Correct, the best way is just to let it warn you.

If it overheats you'll get a yellow warning at 120 degrees and a red warning quickly after that at 130 degrees.

The N52 will put itself in limp mode when it overheats and will reduce the power to protect itself. It's pretty successful at doing that - you don't want to keep driving when that happens but you have enough time to pull over safely and turn it off. Engine damage is always possible but it's really rare on the N52, unlike previous generations where overheating was pretty bad.

There is one thing you can do though - the electric water pump will start throwing error codes for a couple weeks before it actually fails. Other than coolant leaks that's pretty much the only way they overheat. A generic OBD scanner won't find those codes, but something that can read the BMW hex codes will show them. If you don't have a scanner like that already you can search around the forum for some options.

I never knew. Good info, kasson. Also I have heard that these electric water pumps are bad compared to classic belt driven. Meaning, replace it way before you expect a breakdown of this elec pump.........Agree?

[opjose]

No there is no point to doing that.

New pumps seem to fail often given the frequency of people reporting this here.
Likewise there are many very old pumps working without issues.

Mine failed at 32k miles. No errors were thrown prior to the event unlike some reports.

The engine went into limp mode but after letting it cool, I was able to drive 20 miles by only gently accelerating, leaving the cabin heat on, and traveling slowly.

I had both the pump and thermostat replaced at the same time.

I am now at 110k miles on the same pump.

[bmwsinceday1]

Good to know, Thanks.