Does the E39 M5 have an event data recorder? - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

BKH · 14th July 2003, 03:41

As per the newspaper article quoted below, does anyone know whether the E39 M5 has an event data recorder?

"An estimated 25 million automobiles in the United States--almost every newer GM car--now have so-called event data recorders, a scaled-down version of the devices that monitor cockpit activity in airplanes. What the devices record increasingly finds its way into courtrooms, leading some privacy advocates to question how the recorders came to be installed so widely with so little public notice.

"It's like having a government agent driving around in the back seat of your car," said Bob Weiner, defense attorney and a former prosecutor. Most people apparently don't even know whether the vehicles they drive are equipped with event data recorders. Nearly two-thirds of people surveyed by an insurance industry group knew nothing about them.

Prosecutors, police and accident reconstructionists say the boxes yield information no different from what can be gleaned from crushed metal, skid marks and other evidence at the scene. Now, they say, calculations can be backed up.

"It's appearing in prosecutors' cases in support of the normal reconstruction," said W.R. "Rusty" Haight, director of the Collision Safety Institute."

Digi · 14th July 2003, 03:46

I wondered the same when I read this story.

greg · 14th July 2003, 05:48

If it does, it would be the best kept secret in the world. We have so many members who've been through every part of the car, asking or telling "what's this" and "what's that". The known computers in the car, whether the engine management system the nav system, whatever - are all pretty well understood.

So the answer is - I sincerely doubt it.

Vadim-SoCal · 14th July 2003, 05:57

E46M3s record number of parameters that dealer can access during warranty claim or service. There is a lot of info on this topic on www.roadfly.com.
I would imagine E39 has a similar feature.

I will ask Wayne at POWERCHIPS and see if he is aware of this.

greg · 14th July 2003, 08:27

Sure, the engine management computer probably remembers max RPM, probably temperature and other parameters the engine has seen. This can be used to prove that you hit 2nd instead of 4th on a downshift,, over-revved the engine and broke it. Of course, this WOULD be the only way to run the engine past watever redline your cihip has specificed, so you would in fact be at fault. i don't have a problem with that.

I still see ZERO EVIDENCE of anything remotely resembling the cockpit voice and data recorders (as alluded to in the first post of this thread), which record every word said in the cockpit (30 min max, I think), the position of every control input and the corresponding controlled items' response, and a host of other parameters.

Vadim - it would be helpful if you could point us to actual posts of verifiable fact, as opposed to a URL leading to thousands of pages about a boatload of cars. Can you be more specific?

Fast6 · 14th July 2003, 17:47

Here's a pretty good site:
Event Data Recorder
From what I read, the government has denied several petitions to force manufacturers to install EDRs on all cars. Looks like it's mostly Ford and GM that are using them. So Greg, you're probably right that BMW doesn't have them, but there are sections on that site that refer to Ford and GM being pretty hush-hush about them, so I wouldn't rule BMW out.
I read an article just a few days ago about a guy who was involved in an accident that killed two young girls. This guy's defense attorney claimed he was going 50 mph when they collided. However, the EDR recorded a speed of nearly 100 mph at the time of collision.
However, it looks like they're now mandatory on school buses. Here's an excerpt from one of the pages on the site above that describes what they record:
H-99-53 (NHTSA) Require that all school buses and motor coaches manufactured after January 1, 2003, be equipped with on-board recording systems that record vehicle parameters, including, at a minimum, lateral acceleration, longitudinal acceleration, vertical acceleration, heading, vehicle speed, engine speed, driver's seat belt status, braking input, steering input, gear selection, turn signal status (left/right), brake light status (on/off), Head/tail light status (on/off), passenger door status (open/closed), emergency door status (open/closed), hazard light status (on/off), brake system status (normal/warning), and flashing red light status (on/off) (school bus only). For those buses so equipped, the following should also be recorded: status of additional seat belts, airbag deployment criteria, airbag deployment time, and airbag deployment energy. The on-board recording system should record data at a sampling rate that is sufficient to define vehicle dynamics and should be capable of preserving data in the event of a vehicle crash or an electrical power loss. In addition, the on-board recording system should be mounted to the bus body, not the chassis, to ensure that the data necessary for defining bus body motion are recorded. (Source -- Special Investigation Report -- Bus Crashworthiness Issue, (NTSB/SIR-99/04).)

XrayMD · 15th July 2003, 02:44

The stock ECU also has OBDII freeze frame capability so that if some type of system failure occurs, the ECU stores a freeze frame of all OBDII parameters.
This data can be read with a program such as Autotap or Auterra and includes numerous parameters including RPM, vehicle speed, etc.
This is not quite the EDR you're discussing, but it is interesting.

BKH · 15th July 2003, 05:04

Assuming one doesn't want this device in their car (and I don't), the one thing in our favor is that it's so late in the product cycle it's hard to conceive of BMW adding one mid-stream rather than waiting for a clean-sheet design. In any case I wouldn't expect a manufacturer to be particularly forthcoming with any details or diagrams - why give anyone the ammo to defeat it?

VanCooper · 16th July 2003, 10:26

Before I comment on this, I would like to know what are the advantage/disadvantage of having such a device on their car and secondly, why would someone want/not want an EDR on their personal car?

I had never heard of EDR on cars before so that's why I'm asking these questions. Thanks

P.S. The main disadvantage that I see would apply to me is that I wouldn't want anyone to know that I have a heavy foot and it could influence the authorities in case of an accident!

striker79 · 16th July 2003, 10:44

This is kinda a tuff question to answer as since the intro of obd 2 there have been some form of edr on all cars sold in the usa.And i know that if your m5 roles into a shop with a blown engine claiming that it was not your fault bmwna can read the dme and it will tell them what you were doing when the engine went away.Now for the scary stuff soon we will have obd 3 and it will use cell phone towers to send a link to the goverment to tell them if you ses light is on and they will send you a letter saying get it fixed in 48 hours or pay a huge fine.Now one would think if they could tell that much why could they not tell your speed or track you scary for sure.