Replace LCM? $400 crapshoot.

[Huz-Z]

If the instruments and other dash lights are reasonably legible during evening and night driving conditions, and without any certainty that spending some extra money will definitely give you the results you want, I'd be tempted to call this a unique characteristic of your car and call it a day. Take your hard-earned money and take the missus out to a nice dinner somewhere.

[KevinC]

I was tempted to call it a day before, and probably will now - NFW I'm replacing the instrument cluster chasing this gremlin. What sucks is that I can't see the speedo in almost any daylight situation, I wind up straining and shading my eyes trying to see it. And it's kinda important where I live because the cops are constantly on active patrol & stakeout nailing speeders around here. 55 on the 2-lane highway means 55! At night it's fine (if slightly dimmed) but I almost never drive the Z at night.

[Clearancediver]

My '04 does not "light up" during day time.. only works once a the ambient light passes below a certain threshold. I use my GPS during daytime driving... for my car speed (edit)

That said.... pull the cluster and check to see if any of the illumination bulbs are burnt out... or replace all with new and see if that helps...

[Huz-Z]

I must not be understanding the issue. Even with a properly operating LCM in the car, and even if the lights were turned on at full brightness, I'm confused as to how much benefit you would have driving in daytime conditions. After all, the speedometer and tachometer are analog dials - shouldn't they be designed to be easy to read in the daytime, even if the car's lights are off?

[KevinC]

Originally Posted by Huz-Z

I must not be understanding the issue. Even with a properly operating LCM in the car, and even if the lights were turned on at full brightness, I'm confused as to how much benefit you would have driving in daytime conditions. After all, the speedometer and tachometer are analog dials - shouldn't they be designed to be easy to read in the daytime, even if the car's lights are off?

The only reason that I even know there's an issue is because this is my 2nd Z4M. My first one illuminated MUCH better both in daytime and with the lights on at night. I test drove this one after dark and with the dash brightness cranked to full I could tell immediately it wasn't as fully bright as my first one. At night it's totally adequate - I'd never have it at full brightness anyways.

The cluster is just a shitty design. The deep hoods prevent any meaningful daylight getting in there to provide light (except when the car happens to be pointing in the right direction), so BMW designed it with the backlighting on all the time, but it barely adds enough light during the day, even on my former "working" example. But that was far better than what I have now.

To answer the post before that one - I'm quite sure none of the LEDs are burned out. Lighting is uniform, just too dim.

Related question: I now have a perfectly good LCM (the original) that I'm going to put up for sale. My mechanic seemed to think that it couldn't be coded to a different car - but I don't think that's right. Used ones come up for sale all the time. Can anyone confirm that it can be reused in a different car?