[bueller]

I posted a review of the car after the first 1,000 kms, you can read it here. I figured it has been almost 4 months and would provide a longer term update.

Really all of the positive elements of my initial review hold true.

Overall, I have really enjoyed the car so far. It is super comfortable on long trips, and I average 6.5 l / 100 kms or 36 MPG on long trips generally doing 10 MPH over the speed limit with a cargo box on the roof, so pretty good!

The magic of this car is that even though it is a diesel, when you put it in sport + mode and select the sport mode for the transmission it is really fun to drive. When you keep it in Eco-Pro, which I find more comfortable when not giving it the beans, it is an economical and prudent in it's power delivery.

I damaged one of the tires by hitting a small pothole on the highway somewhere around Chicago and replaced all the tires with Michelin Pilot Sports and the car rides and handles much better, run flats are really sub par.

I did find some things annoying / infuriating, the most egregious of which was courtesy of the legal team at BMW NA. They saw fit to pop useless messages on the backup camera display telling you not to run into stuff. Not only is this not helpful or necessary information, it gets in the way of seeing stuff that I am trying to avoid hitting.

I bought a programming cable and turned that nonsense off. I also made it so I can close the hatch with the key, roll up the windows and turned off the seat belt chimes, programmed the car to start in eco-pro mode.

The thing I am left thinking is that with all of the electronics, there should be more ability for the owner of the car to make decisions for themselves, and that the defaults should be more respectful of the owner of the car, for example, if I want to set the car to Sport + mode, it should stay there until I change it so something else.

While I still like the Active Cruse control, in cities where people are generally a little more assertive, it is not, so I find in situations like that it doddles too much for my liking. I recently drove a Tesla P90D with Autopilot, that was really impressive, hopefully BMW will offer something like that in their next revision.

I find the navigation in my 2011 BMW works better than the new system especially on longer trips. My new car navigates me to exits then directly back on to highways for no good reason. It is not an every now or then thing, it did it probably once every hour and a half or so while on a cross country trip.

On longer trips I like to plan out the trip before I go, and contrary to what one might think, the send destination to car (which does not work any more if you have a Canadian car) is just that, destination only, it is not like to can plan a trip in Google Maps and send it to the car. I think there is a way to do it with .kml files and a thumb drive on european or re-coded cars, but not with the current NA iDrive.

Things that have broken / stopped working


Shortly after I got the car the engine light came on, it was on for a couple of days and went off on its own. It came on again a couple of days ago and is still blessing me with its amber hue.

The front left camera kind of flashes, it looks like a loose connection somewhere.

The right blind spot sensor does not work all the time (just turned that off as working sometimes is worse than knowing it's off)

The sunroof has stopped opening, the button does nothing, luckily it decided to stop working when it was closed.

I think that most of these above problems are best left untreated (not the engine light) as I would have anxiety from the dealer taking apart my car to address the issues.

Impressions now

Overall, I enjoy the car, and while not a fan of switch blanks and missing options, I do wish I ordered the car with less options. While visiting a friend, he just bought a new VW Golf Wagon, and while not in the same category as my wagon, his car was literally one third of the cost of my car, so I find the value / reward curve for BMW options to be very steep. I probably could have done without the M Sport, Driver Assistance, Technology Package and LED adaptive Headlights, I also would have gone with the 18" non run flat tires instead of the 19".

A few of the options offered in North America and Canada specifically are somewhat neutered versions of what you may find on the internet while researching options. For example, in Canada, the ConnectedDrive feature provides you with Real Time Traffic info that is nowhere as good as the free service WAZE, and the weather, that is pretty much it. The information on bmw.ca regarding the technical abilities of the ConnectedDrive system are misleading at best, for example, the internet is not available in my car as it shows on the web site. The concierge service is kind of useless unless you like that kind of thing. The Adaptive headlights are missing the anti dazzle feature offered elsewhere.

If I wanted a super reliable car, I would have not purchased a BMW with all kinds of options, my focus was on enjoyable to drive, styling I enjoyed. I am not saying that BMWs are not reliable, I just think that in my case less might have been more.

B.

[Adamr916]

That CEL is probably the same sensor in mine that went out. The CEL came on in my car on the test drive, they cleared it and it came back on with the drive home. Turned out to be a sensor in the emissions system that was bad.

[bueller]

Originally Posted by Adamr916

That CEL is probably the same sensor in mine that went out. The CEL came on in my car on the test drive, they cleared it and it came back on with the drive home. Turned out to be a sensor in the emissions system that was bad.

Thanks, that is reassuring, the car seems to drive fine, I has a HPFP go in my 135 and it was not drivable at all. We will see late next week when it goes in for service. I'll update the post after the car goes in.

B.