Though the winter months can be brutally cold, they provide a great opportunity to use your spare free time to make some upgrades to your BMW. With the extra downtime, you can take on some fun winter projects to keep you busy and get your car in its best shape for the warmer months ahead. In this article, we’ll provide some easy projects and upgrades to keep you busy in the downtime before car season.
BMW Professional Scan Tool
The Schwaben BMW Professional Scan Tool is a small, portable device that you can connect to your car to help you diagnose potential problems. A true diagnostic device like our scan tool is a wonderful investment to help save you time and money by taking the guesswork out of troubleshooting and allowing you to perform services on your BMW that traditionally require proprietary software. Whether you’re investigating a random check engine light, clearing adaptations, or cycling your electronic parking brake, if you work on your BMW at home, you need a Schwaben professional scan tool before anything else.
Interior Lighting Upgrades
One quick and fun way to keep you busy in the winter is to tackle upgrading your car’s interior lighting. Upgrading to LED lights can produce a brighter, more vibrant white light in your car that helps bring a contemporary feel to even older BMW interiors. BMW cabins, even from the oldest generations, are comfortable and (generally speaking) have a luxurious atmosphere, but the old yellow traditional bulbs can make it seem a bit dated. LED bulbs like our ZiZA interior lighting upgrades bring an updated feel and practical functionality from physically brighter bulbs to bring your classic BMW into the modern era.
Interior lighting upgrades can replace every traditional bulb in your BMW, like the dome lighting, glove box lighting, step and trunk lights, and more. Even better, upgrading the interior lighting in your car requires very little experience and can be completed with no previous experience!
Headlight Restoration and Upgrades
Have you noticed that over time your car’s headlights look cloudy? Are you noticing that your visibility has decreased? Headlight oxidation happens over time and actually can be a safety concern in addition to detracting from the look of your BMW. Restoration kits like Griot’s Garage offer allow you to quickly correct the oxidation on your BMW’s headlight housings to bring back some of its visual appeals as well as improve your nighttime visibility. These kits are inexpensive and easy to use and make for a perfect DIY project during the cold winter months.
Body Trim Restoration
Like headlight housings, black plastic trim on your BMW fades over the years. Exterior trim can fade from time in the sunlight and begin to look less black and grayer. Common ‘quick fixes’ include wiping exterior black plastic trim with tire shine, which can give the trim a fresh black appearance for a few days, but there are only two permanent solutions. The first of which is physically replacing all the trim with new versions, but that is more costly than the appearance improvement can justify. Griot’s Garage once again comes in clutch with their exterior trim restoration product which is designed to rejuvenate and protect this unpainted plastic trim so it maintains it’s fresh ‘new’ look much longer than the backyard quick fix. This is an easy application that you can add to your regular cleaning routine to permanently combat exterior trim fade.
Interior Detailing
Our cars show wear and tear quickly over time, especially with daily usage. Though many of us maintain regular quick cleanings, interior detailing is often neglected. A great interior detailing can make your car feel new, fresh, and clean again. Taking your car to a professional interior detailing service can be pricey, but it is possible to take on this project yourself this winter. With some quick YouTube research, it is easy to learn simple DIY tips to start interior detailing your car yourself. You’ll be tackling spring cleaning way in advance of spring!
We love Griot’s products (if you can’t tell) and have experienced much of their interior detailing product firsthand in our home garages. Their line of interior detailer products helps keep every kind of material surface found in your BMW properly clean without risking any unwanted damage from harsh products. We highly recommend their leather care products, too. Don’t neglect your BMW’s leather!
BAVSOUND Stereo Upgrades
As BMW owners, we inherently care about quality products. That’s why we gravitate towards BMW, after all. From the factory, BMW does offer some excellent sound systems, especially with the optional Harmon Kardon systems. However, as these systems age, the speakers do wear out. Whether yours is just old and tired or you aren’t happy with the sound quality, BavSound offers specifically designed high-quality audio systems designed by BMW enthusiast audiophiles for BMW enthusiast audiophiles.
BavSound systems are fine-tuned for a wide range of frequencies and deliver crisp, complex, and precise tones from their BMW-specific kits. Made with BMW in mind, you can easily upgrade the speakers, amplifier, and sound system components with a kit that fits like factory parts and delivers the highest quality sound you can experience in your cabin.
