Oct 7th, 2009
This coming weekend we will be busy visiting/covering car meets and shows in the North East. On Saturday the Green Mountain Chapter of the BMWCCA will be holding OktoberFAST at the beautiful Smugglers’ Notch Resort. Vermont in the fall is one of my favorite places to be; folliage, micro-brews, and the brisk clean air. Adding some German cars to that makes it even better.
If you are up for a nice ride, great vistas and of course BMWs you should considering making the trip.
On Sunday morning we will be off to GPNY for some karting as part of an Oktoberfest BMW meet, to be covered in more detail tomorrow.
Full details for OktoberFAST can be found below
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Nov 14th, 2008
With the release of the Advanced Diesels from BMW our friend, Jonathan Spira, opted to test a variety of oil burning cars and assemble a short review of sorts. The differences in the engines and the performance across brands is interesting and worth noting. High praise appears to warranted for the VW.
If you still think that diesels are slow and noisy, and belch black smoke, you’re not alone—but you probably live in the U.S. Today, diesels in Europe account for roughly 50% of the market. In BMW’s home market of Germany, 70% of BMWs sold are diesels.
But in the United States, the market is minuscule, in part because diesel automobiles acquired a reputation for poor reliability thanks in part to diesel models from Cadillac and Oldsmobile in the 1980s. For some reason, the ultra-reliable Mercedes 240d never seems to be what comes to mind, despite the fact that these cars were typically able to last well over 100,000 miles. (Of course, getting one to start at 40 below was an interesting adventure. . . but what’s life without a little challenge?)
His test list includes:
BMW 335d, BMW 535d, BMW 123d, Audi A6 TDI, VW Jetta TDI, and pulling up the rear is the Mercedes Benz ML320
Click here for the full read over at the BMWCCA.
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Oct 26th, 2008
Last Thursday the New York Times published a review of the new iDrive. We did not link to it or even acknowledge its existence for several reasons. It was so poorly researched and contained so many falsehoods that we thought we would first like to review it and make some corrections. The thing is, our friend, Jonathan Spira at the BMWCCA was faster to the draw than we were. He made some corrections to the NYT piece and as always he drives home the same points we would.
The latest version of iDrive in the new 7 Series
As a public service, here are five key points where the Great Gray Lady got it wrong, with full clarification.
NEW YORK TIMES: Earlier iDrives were so slow to respond that changing any setting was best performed while the car was parked.
We say: While pre-4.0 iDrive systems set no speed records, this is simply not correct. While the Gen 1 iDrive (as introduced in September 2001 in the 2002 E65/E66 7 Series) was a bit of a laggard, it was also built on a platform that was discarded fairly quickly. Even this system was fast enough to be used when driving; its complex menu structure, however, did slow the driver down—but that is clearly not what The Times had in mind.
Starting with Generation 2 (introduced in the 2004 E60/E61 5 Series), iDrive, while not setting speed records, could not be characterized as slow, either. Subsequent software upgrades provided some improvement in speed, and the Gen 3 iDrive (introduced in March 2007) could even be considered snappy.
For Jonathan’s full public service announcement please click on over the BMWCCA forum here
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Oct 9th, 2008
All 2009 MY BMW equipped with navigation, sans X3, will now include the MyInfo feature. This was originally rolled out in the X6 this past spring with the new GSM (Global Standard for Mobile on the AT&T network) telematics unit. This unit will now make its way to the other models.
MyInfo does not require the BMW Assist convenience plan unlike the new Google Maps functions, so even with the basic safety plan you will be able to use this feature. Essentially you or someone else can send the to the car: destinations, a short message or phone number. They are conveniently displayed on the iDrive screen and can be clicked to be added to the navigation or dialed via a bluetooth phone.
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Sep 24th, 2008
As a reminder to all of our readers we are reposting a story from a while back. This event is the BMW event of all events, you can drive on the track or just view some amazing cars throughout the several days. If you are lucky enough to attend please take lots of photos as we would love to see them and hear about your experience! The leaves have just begun to turn so the colors are starting to come out!
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Sep 8th, 2008
Our good friend Jonathan at the BMWCCA has had the privilege of being one of the first journalists in the US to spend some time with the new iDrive system.
He has collaborated with us in the past on good number of stories in regards to previous generations of the system and of course this new one.
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