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Just a side note. The good news is these cars are very difficult to overheat, in the sense the coolant gets so hot the engine is damaged. The computer monitors just about everything coolant wise (a lot more than just coolant temperature). It will throw up the warning and may put the car in limp mode if a serious anomaly is detected. How do I know? My wife was driving the car when the dreaded over heat warning came on and the car went in to limp mode in the middle of an intersection (no more than 10 mph and almost no throttle). She pulled into the nearest parking lot. The car has an aftermarket temperature gauge and the gauge was showing a normal temperature. We towed the car to the dealer for the diagnoses.
Well after they read the codes it turns out the computer instructed the electric water pump to increase speed while my wife was crossing the intersection, the computer then detected that the new higher water pump rpm was 20% below normal. Bingo! Warning light and limp mode. I asked the SA why the warning and limp mode before the coolant even climbed above the normal operating range? He said that BMW's coolant monitoring system is designed to predict over temperature conditions and will typically intervene long before any engine damage is done.
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