I wanted to ask others here if their delaerships updated their cars to v36 on there own or did you have to request it from them. My dealer is telling me that it is not a recall and if you want it you have to request it?? They have my MCS in for service right know. My MCS has a 01/2003 build date and it does stumble a little upon acceleration from a stand still.

 

Your dealer is correct. Software upgrades are handled on a "Customer complaint basis only" and are not considered to be blanket recalls and therefore they are not supposed to upgrade your car unless you report a driveability problem or have a specific request for it.

If your 1/2003 build MCS is experiencing the Stumble problem, then by all means have the dealer install V36 to your ECU by request.

 

As far as I know, your dealer is giving you the straight story. You have to ask for it. BMW did not recall cars for any aspect of the DME programming (i.e., the "software&quot. I don't believe that even a "service bulletin" was issued.

This is a tough call. Even though the new software has helped many hard core stumblers (myself included), there's good wisdom to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" point of view. So, if you;re not sure that your stumble is bad...or not even sure you have one, I'd be reluctant to upgrade.

It's not possible to return to a previous software version once an upgrade has been applied.

 

when was the new v36 software released? I have a 1/04 build i have a stumble as well.

thanks

tony

 

^ the software was available on a limited basis in December 2003, and more broadly after the first of the year.

Nevertheless, it's unclear what was being installed on cars at the factory...and when. The only sure-fire thing to do is to get your dealer to hook the car up to the computer and read the version from the DME/ECU (this data is NOT available via any other means!).

Before deciding that you have a stumble, or yo-yo, or whatever,and whether or not it might be correctable by software upgrade, you really should read the past threads about this. A huge amount of research and opinion went into these, and it'd be a shame to have to start all of that over again.

 

jsun,
I have read and reread the post on the yo-yo. And I do have the yo - yo effect, if I had a choice I WOULDN'T DECIDE TO HAVE IT. I just wanted to know when the dealer started the putting the new software on to the computers.


tony

p.s. not trying to start up about the yo - yo effect!

 

Tony, theoretically your 1/04 build car should have the version 36 software (or newer). That's the newest software there is. But that's just theoretical, since (as I said) no one seems to have determined an absolute correlation between build date and specific software version installed at the factory.

 

A few things:

1) V36 was first installed at the factory on MINIs built as of November 2003. Cars built before that date, DO NOT HAVE V36.

2) MINIUSA issued a service bulletin in early December 2003. The first release of V36 was in the German Language. Subsequent English language releases were issued in early January '04 to dealers

3) V36 applies to all MINI models sold in the US: Cooper, CVT and MCS.

4) Fixes included are for uneven idle on Cooper, CVT models and "poor pull away performance" "Stumble" for the MCS model.


If you have had problems and your car is older than November 2003, then get V36 under warranty by all means.

 

****important****


Even if your dealer hooks up the GT1 machine to your MINI they will not be able to see the actual software version installed, just a series of sequence numbers that alert the technician of an 'older' version of the ECU software in the car, but it does not specify exact version/build sequence number.


when they downloaded V36 to my '04 MCS last January I was there with the tech at every step of the way.