Holy Tight Back Seat!
08-17-2023, 06:22 AM
#81
Air Vice Marshal
Interesting discussion here. I'm just back from a vacation trip for which I rented (not my choice) a 740i X drive, fully loaded. This is a truly ginormous car. I'm over 6 foot and the back seat looked like a limo even with the drivers seat in my preferred position. But you really felt the 4700 pounds of weight the car had in it. Not exactly an "ultimate driving machine," although the turbo V6/ZF transmission combo was nice for two-lane passing moments. The car had a ton of features, but we found many of them were ridiculously complicated to control, and some seemed to control themselves, despite our best efforts (e.g., what I guess was a gesture-sensitive motion control feature for sound system volume -- every time my wife or I would use our hands to make a point while talking, we shut down the volume. Maddening.
While it was a decent car for cruising along, all I could keep thinking was how mad I would be at myself in a few months if I had spent over 100K for this car. It had way too many creaks and rattles, seats were OK, but could never get them fully comfortable, sound system was nice, but no better than ELS, climate control required constant fiddling, etc. For the price of this car, one could get a couple of TLXs and maybe have enough money left over for a nice Honda motorcycle. And you'd avoid that day of reckoning when all those whirring electric motors, complicated electronic controls, etc. start failing out of warranty.
In the end, I think I would have been just as happy, if not more so, in the Chrysler 300 I had reserved for this trip. Or in the TLX A Spec loaner I had the last time my car was in for routine service.
While it was a decent car for cruising along, all I could keep thinking was how mad I would be at myself in a few months if I had spent over 100K for this car. It had way too many creaks and rattles, seats were OK, but could never get them fully comfortable, sound system was nice, but no better than ELS, climate control required constant fiddling, etc. For the price of this car, one could get a couple of TLXs and maybe have enough money left over for a nice Honda motorcycle. And you'd avoid that day of reckoning when all those whirring electric motors, complicated electronic controls, etc. start failing out of warranty.
In the end, I think I would have been just as happy, if not more so, in the Chrysler 300 I had reserved for this trip. Or in the TLX A Spec loaner I had the last time my car was in for routine service.
I agree that the gesture control is worse than useless. I turned mine off since my sister-in-law refused to wear a straight jacket, and anything you can do with it can easily be done with steering wheel controls or voice.
Coming from a number of Honda/Acura products I found the BMW controls pretty confusing at first, but my wife’s Pilot had a pretty steep learning curve as well. But after a year and four months, and quite a few day long drives, I quite like them now.
I’m not an audiophile, so I’m somewhat indifferent to the sound system. Sounds good to me, but nothing to rave about. That is a common feeling on BMW forums, probably the biggest complaint. I personally am satisfied with it, but certainly don’t think it’s amazing.
I love my seats, but learning to adjust them has its own learning curve. There are so many ways they can be adjusted. In addition to rake, the seat back also can flex halfway up to adjust the curvature, The headrest can be tilted as well as moved up and down, the lumbar can move in and out, etc etc. It took my wife and I a while to fit ourselves. And the controls are a bit confusing since most of them have multiple motions. My seats are heated and ventilated, but I didn’t get cooled and massage. Many find them less comfortable because of the mechanisms in the base.
PS, it’s an I6, not a V6. The transmissions are amazing.
08-17-2023, 06:50 AM
#82
AZ Community Team
Interesting discussion here. I'm just back from a vacation trip for which I rented (not my choice) a 740i X drive, fully loaded. This is a truly ginormous car. I'm over 6 foot and the back seat looked like a limo even with the drivers seat in my preferred position. But you really felt the 4700 pounds of weight the car had in it. Not exactly an "ultimate driving machine," although the turbo V6/ZF transmission combo was nice for two-lane passing moments. The car had a ton of features, but we found many of them were ridiculously complicated to control, and some seemed to control themselves, despite our best efforts (e.g., what I guess was a gesture-sensitive motion control feature for sound system volume -- every time my wife or I would use our hands to make a point while talking, we shut down the volume. Maddening.
While it was a decent car for cruising along, all I could keep thinking was how mad I would be at myself in a few months if I had spent over 100K for this car. It had way too many creaks and rattles, seats were OK, but could never get them fully comfortable, sound system was nice, but no better than ELS, climate control required constant fiddling, etc. For the price of this car, one could get a couple of TLXs and maybe have enough money left over for a nice Honda motorcycle. And you'd avoid that day of reckoning when all those whirring electric motors, complicated electronic controls, etc. start failing out of warranty.
In the end, I think I would have been just as happy, if not more so, in the Chrysler 300 I had reserved for this trip. Or in the TLX A Spec loaner I had the last time my car was in for routine service.
While it was a decent car for cruising along, all I could keep thinking was how mad I would be at myself in a few months if I had spent over 100K for this car. It had way too many creaks and rattles, seats were OK, but could never get them fully comfortable, sound system was nice, but no better than ELS, climate control required constant fiddling, etc. For the price of this car, one could get a couple of TLXs and maybe have enough money left over for a nice Honda motorcycle. And you'd avoid that day of reckoning when all those whirring electric motors, complicated electronic controls, etc. start failing out of warranty.
In the end, I think I would have been just as happy, if not more so, in the Chrysler 300 I had reserved for this trip. Or in the TLX A Spec loaner I had the last time my car was in for routine service.
Last edited by Legend2TL; 08-17-2023 at 06:55 AM.
08-17-2023, 01:03 PM
#83
Drifting
How many miles did it have on it? I’m kind of surprised at all the creaks and rattles, not a complaint I typically see on the BMW forums.
I agree that the gesture control is worse than useless. I turned mine off since my sister-in-law refused to wear a straight jacket, and anything you can do with it can easily be done with steering wheel controls or voice.
Coming from a number of Honda/Acura products I found the BMW controls pretty confusing at first, but my wife’s Pilot had a pretty steep learning curve as well. But after a year and four months, and quite a few day long drives, I quite like them now.
I’m not an audiophile, so I’m somewhat indifferent to the sound system. Sounds good to me, but nothing to rave about. That is a common feeling on BMW forums, probably the biggest complaint. I personally am satisfied with it, but certainly don’t think it’s amazing.
I love my seats, but learning to adjust them has its own learning curve. There are so many ways they can be adjusted. In addition to rake, the seat back also can flex halfway up to adjust the curvature, The headrest can be tilted as well as moved up and down, the lumbar can move in and out, etc etc. It took my wife and I a while to fit ourselves. And the controls are a bit confusing since most of them have multiple motions. My seats are heated and ventilated, but I didn’t get cooled and massage. Many find them less comfortable because of the mechanisms in the base.
PS, it’s an I6, not a V6. The transmissions are amazing.
I agree that the gesture control is worse than useless. I turned mine off since my sister-in-law refused to wear a straight jacket, and anything you can do with it can easily be done with steering wheel controls or voice.
Coming from a number of Honda/Acura products I found the BMW controls pretty confusing at first, but my wife’s Pilot had a pretty steep learning curve as well. But after a year and four months, and quite a few day long drives, I quite like them now.
I’m not an audiophile, so I’m somewhat indifferent to the sound system. Sounds good to me, but nothing to rave about. That is a common feeling on BMW forums, probably the biggest complaint. I personally am satisfied with it, but certainly don’t think it’s amazing.
I love my seats, but learning to adjust them has its own learning curve. There are so many ways they can be adjusted. In addition to rake, the seat back also can flex halfway up to adjust the curvature, The headrest can be tilted as well as moved up and down, the lumbar can move in and out, etc etc. It took my wife and I a while to fit ourselves. And the controls are a bit confusing since most of them have multiple motions. My seats are heated and ventilated, but I didn’t get cooled and massage. Many find them less comfortable because of the mechanisms in the base.
PS, it’s an I6, not a V6. The transmissions are amazing.
The car had over 40K on it, and who knows how it was treated. The main sources of creaking were the sunroofs, but it had some other strange noises emanating from the right rear and middle parts of the car.
I'm guessing if we owned the car, we could have eventually gotten up to speed on the controls, but they just seemed needlessly complicated. One continuing source of frustration were the drive mode buttons on the console. Any time you reached for something or placed something on the console, it would trigger a new screen asking what drive mode change you wanted to implement.
I had a feeling the seats could have been better adjusted for my comfort, but I just never found the right control/menu, etc. They were heated/cooled, so maybe that's the issue you mentioned. They weren't terrible, but it seemed they had more potential than I was realizing.
As I said the driving experience was fine for a highway cruiser. I expected it to feel a little sharper in the handling department, but again, I felt I never mastered the art of getting the drive mode control dialed in, so that may have been a factor.
The real standout factor for me was the motor/trans. Perfect for dialing in the right amount of oomph for making a two-lane passing maneuver. (I had a similar reaction to an Audi which was my last rental. Great motor (albeit that DCT was a little clunky now and then). The motor had good power and outstanding MPG, but the rest of car was a bit ho-hum -- Audi A3).
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