I imagine it's looking at the information and sending it on the kbus so that the radio can display it. There was a member on here years ago creating this Car Kracker module that plugged into the cd changer plug and it could supposedly display text on the radio display as well (supposedly SMS messages from your phone over Bluetooth, for example). I bought one but never really did anything with it. This isn't something you'd be able to code.

 

Oh, dang, now me wants, too.

Yes, it'd take a bit of hardware to 'fool' the CD to show engine data...

t

 

This made me look into the oil temp question and potentially using one of the OBDII apps like Torque Pro or OBDFusion. It seems they can't get Oil Temp because the E46 doesn't expose it to OBDII, only the bus stuff. So you do need some hunk of hardware to read the bus and display it. I do know that the Bluebus can display temps but not on E46.

 

If you're looking at apps, you might want to research into the ibus interface. That setup can display oil temps on a head unit.

 

I installed this a couple years back. I have a thread on this here: Integrated Oil Temp Gauge

I didn't follow up in that thread, but I pulled up INPA on my laptop and drove around while the car warmed up, and compared INPA oil temp vs eKombi temp. It was never more than ~5 deg C off, which is close enough in my books.

 

If you’re going to spend that much, then just get the Carly adapter and app. It can display any of the DME live data.

 

Isn't Carly subscription-based? I don't think I can recommend that to anyone for our cars when there's INPA and NCS Expert.

I'd classify this as different to a diagnostic tool or app on your phone - I was willing to pay and install it because it's an easy way to get an oil temp gauge without needing to pull up an app or cycle through the OBC menu.

 

That is way too much money for a kbus parasite, I see they charge handsomely for their comfort indicator and mirror fold versions too.
Fairly sure there were other such products offered at better prices/having more functionality. One was even supporting E65 seat comfort functions via the E83 MID

 

Thank you all. Now I have a better idea how that works. I might get Carly, but I don’t like using phone for everything - I’m too old school even though I’m 23 y.o, but maybe I will change my mind. I like this module thingy because it uses the radio display. I also will search for different manufacturers of something similar. There might be some.

 

So, having done a little bit of low- level electronics-

yeah, e150 is a lot. But you'll never 'do it yourself and save'
as there's a TON of time in this stuff. And for such a small market
as us E46 holdouts are, you'll never make it up in volume and 'subscription',
like all the tech oligarchs managed to do.
So you do it as an organized hobby, make money off each sale, and the low
volume translates to low stress.

t
"You gots to pay us every month or Vinnie, here, might come around and break your Expel Shredsheets."

 

I made an android app a while ago to display the Oil Temperature, unfortunately the WiFi K+DCAN interface that I use is no longer available. But, if you are interested in the details, you can read about here: GitHub - tomicooler/bmwe46oil

You could also buy a used E46 M3 instrument cluster, that would show the oil temperature as far as I know.