2010 650i delivery compared to my old 2006 650i
06-11-2009, 02:39 PM
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2010 vs 2006 650i
Two weeks ago I took delivery of a new 2010 650i. It?s Deep Sea Blue with a Saddle brown interior. The only option missing is night vision which is something I just couldn't see using. The key difference between the 2006 and 2010 is the 2010 is ordered with the sports package.
Overall I?m quite happy with the car and in particular the looks. The Deep Sea Blue is a great color it has a nice vibrancy. The sport package gave me seats which are better with more comfort than the standard seats. The 19? wheels (249) look good. However, to me they always look a little dirty. The flat faces of the wheel are the brushed aluminum like that of most wheels. The beveled edges and the interior of the wheel are painted a very light metallic gray. This enhances the shadows but from a distance it gives the look of wheels with a light film of brake dust even when clean. I like a little more shine.
There are some noticeable and subtle differences going from a 2006 to 2010 650i. Walking up to the car the first thing you notice is the two creases in the front hood where the 2006 had a gentle curve. The surprise was the ride. Better in the 2010. The 2006 although not uncomfortable got complaints from my wife. It is smoother, more comfortable particularly over rough roads and at the same time it feels more sure footed. It could just be it?s new car - I like it. The real test came yesterday on a stretch of highway I often travel. On this stretch of road the 2006 had real issues with trammeling, the road surface would cause the car to veer to one side or the other. I was never able to resolve that issue with the 2006. The 2010 on the same stretch of highway is precise totally unaffected even with larger wheels and lower profile tires. On those rough roads the 2010 is quiet. Unlike the 2006 there are just no rattles of any sort. It just feels tighter and more evolved.
Although it is to early in the break in cycle to let the engine run, the sound is different. It is more of high pitched sounds reminiscent of a high revving car on a track. The 2006 had a deep resonant roar reminiscent of the big old hot rod V8 - you just knew it was a high performance sound. The 2010 still sounds powerful but not quite as sonorous. I liked the sound of the 2006.
On first blush the car looks the same. There are some subtle differences that you have to look for. The fog lights now have a wrap around lens, the third brake light has moved to the trunk lid, and the chrome tipped exhaust has changed to a bluish/smoked chrome tip. All of which looks good particularly with the color of the car.
On the inside there are too many changes to discuss, some differences are also the difference between sports seats and standard seats. There are no more programmable buttons on the steering wheel. Instead there is a button to change music source and the lower button is used to deactivate the Lane Change Warning feature. I hardly ever used the programmable buttons so I wont miss them.
The heater buttons are different and in my opinion fail the user interface. There is nothing to indicate the passenger and the driver button when pushed cycle through different airflow programs. Unlike the 2006 there is no iDrive interaction to the climate function.
The CD and DVD slot are now merged into one combination DVD/CD slot. When you load a new version of the navigation software it is uploaded to the hard disk in the car. You don?t keep the navigation DVD in the slot. In fact I have not received a copy of the DVD as in prior cars.
Just below the DVD/CD slot are programmable buttons. Where you program often used either navigation locations, music, radio or god knows what else. I really like having my home location programed on the first button.
iDrive - This is a fast piece of electronics well matched to the performance of the car. The 2006 was slow in comparison. The new iDrive is without question faster. The real question which I haven?t resolved is - is it better? In someways yes and in other no.
The learning curve is steep. What you have learned in the past iDrives you have to unlearn. The iDrive is still not the most intuitive. It is now menu and button driven no more icons or quadrants for particular functions. You use buttons which naturally fall under your fingers and are easy to find. Once I got accustomed to their location they?re easy to use. I actually like this better.
Overall what has improved is text entry which is quick, better maps. What is less than stellar is the lack of intuitive design in the interface. The problem quite simply is there are times you need to go to settings to set something up and at times use the ?option? key but it is not consistent or intuitive which to use. I?ll get used to it just like I did with the other. A good example is two days ago I happened across the capacity of the hard disk drive in the car. I wanted to take a picture of the screen today to upload with the other pictures and verify the capacity. I?ll be damned if I can find that particular screen. The screen had the drive capacity 1250 MB (I think it is correct) and a large picture of a drive.
There are quirks in the navigation search. The other day I was looking for a particular school where I was to meet a group for league tennis. I couldn't find the high school in any of the lists - in the old version of iDrive I could. More curiously I used the category of government to search thinking a school might be listed in this category. Not one listing was of a government office in Colorado. They were all at least over a 1,000 miles away in Mexico. I didn?t know Colorado joined Mexico.
Stereo/smartphone integration - The integration of the iPhone is nice. However what I was hoping for was the ability to grab the addresses from the iPhone and use them for navigation. That is not yet possible at least with my Mac based iPhone. I?m hopping a software update on the iPhone or from BMW will rectify this problem. The manual is fairly clear you should be able to get the addresses directly from a smart phone.
I did buy the iPhone cradle which not only charges the phone but allows the music stored on the iPhone to be played in the car. That works really well. What doesn?t work well is the tray that holds the phone in the center console. It is just plain awkward to get to the phone or in particular open the storage compartment below. You open the lid then you have to make sure you prop open the lid and then try to push the button on the tray to flip that up while driving. It would have been nice to use one of the two available buttons to open up the lid and the other open up the lid and the tray to give you access to the storage area.
New Features I like:
Lane Departure Warning - Nice. It is a really very nice subtle reminder to pay attention when you drift while twiddling the iDrive. Since I had gone through the Driving Experience with my last 650i I have really come to appreciate driving with precision. It sure let me know I?m not as precise as I think.
Adaptive Cruise Control - This is very cool. It is great on the highway slows you down and speeds you up to automatically keep you at a safe distance from the car in front of you. It is nice to just let the car take care of the speed modulation for you. If you have to deal with stop and go traffic it does bring the car to a complete stop and holds it there. If there is no one in front of you and you enter a curve at a speed the cruise control think is too fast it will do what it can to slow the car down. There are two things you have to watch out for. It can?t recognized cars already stopped and on curves, particularly sharp curves, it may loose track of the car in front and start to accelerate. I like it.
MyInfo - The coolest feature! What it does is it allows you to email directly to the car from Google Maps a location you want to go to. It is simple elegant and incredibly useful. Last week I had my niece visit and we took tours through Denver and the rest of Colorado. I used Google maps to locate things like the Molly Brown House, Trail Ridge Road (the highest paved road in the US at slightly more than 12,000 Feet) and other point of interest from the comfort of my desk. It just worked flawlessly. No cost and very cool.
Start/Stop button now puts the car in Park when you turn it off.
The best features I find indispensable which also were on my 2006:
HUD - I think is a must. If you use navigation it is one very nice way to get the directions without having to be interrupted by a voice or constantly checking the map display to making sure you are on track to go where you want to go.
Comfort Access I love walking up to my car and not fumble getting out a key or a key fob and opening the door and driving off.
HD Radio has such clear sound. When you can get its great. The 2010 has HD radio as standard with the added benefit of having access to the sub or secondary radio station.
Disappointments:
Satellite Radio - I wish I hadn?t bothered with it. I rarely used on the last car and with the input options for entertainment through USB, in car storage of music, and just connecting to what I have loaded on my iPhone I can?t think of running out of stuff to be entertained by. The only exception is if I was to do a long cross country trip. I probably will not renew the subscription once the first year free access is over.
Lock & Unlock notification - With Comfort Access it is nice to know the car has locked as you walk away. I sure don?t need it to tell me with an obnoxious beep that the doors are unlocked particularly since I?m standing next to the car and grasping the handle. The 2006 had the option of turning lock notification on and keep the unlock from beeping.
Lack of internal storage - the cabin has next to no storage and lost some with the additional tray for the phone. The pockets in the door really don?t fit most sunglasses or their cases particularly if you have wrap around style sunglasses you still have no good place to put them.
As of this writing the 2010 has just gone over 900 miles. I like it more. It has the features I like. Best of all the ride is more comfortable and although I?ve not yet driven it to its potential it feels precise, more sure footed and with smoother acceleration. The car seems more evolved.
Two weeks ago I took delivery of a new 2010 650i. It?s Deep Sea Blue with a Saddle brown interior. The only option missing is night vision which is something I just couldn't see using. The key difference between the 2006 and 2010 is the 2010 is ordered with the sports package.
Overall I?m quite happy with the car and in particular the looks. The Deep Sea Blue is a great color it has a nice vibrancy. The sport package gave me seats which are better with more comfort than the standard seats. The 19? wheels (249) look good. However, to me they always look a little dirty. The flat faces of the wheel are the brushed aluminum like that of most wheels. The beveled edges and the interior of the wheel are painted a very light metallic gray. This enhances the shadows but from a distance it gives the look of wheels with a light film of brake dust even when clean. I like a little more shine.
There are some noticeable and subtle differences going from a 2006 to 2010 650i. Walking up to the car the first thing you notice is the two creases in the front hood where the 2006 had a gentle curve. The surprise was the ride. Better in the 2010. The 2006 although not uncomfortable got complaints from my wife. It is smoother, more comfortable particularly over rough roads and at the same time it feels more sure footed. It could just be it?s new car - I like it. The real test came yesterday on a stretch of highway I often travel. On this stretch of road the 2006 had real issues with trammeling, the road surface would cause the car to veer to one side or the other. I was never able to resolve that issue with the 2006. The 2010 on the same stretch of highway is precise totally unaffected even with larger wheels and lower profile tires. On those rough roads the 2010 is quiet. Unlike the 2006 there are just no rattles of any sort. It just feels tighter and more evolved.
Although it is to early in the break in cycle to let the engine run, the sound is different. It is more of high pitched sounds reminiscent of a high revving car on a track. The 2006 had a deep resonant roar reminiscent of the big old hot rod V8 - you just knew it was a high performance sound. The 2010 still sounds powerful but not quite as sonorous. I liked the sound of the 2006.
On first blush the car looks the same. There are some subtle differences that you have to look for. The fog lights now have a wrap around lens, the third brake light has moved to the trunk lid, and the chrome tipped exhaust has changed to a bluish/smoked chrome tip. All of which looks good particularly with the color of the car.
On the inside there are too many changes to discuss, some differences are also the difference between sports seats and standard seats. There are no more programmable buttons on the steering wheel. Instead there is a button to change music source and the lower button is used to deactivate the Lane Change Warning feature. I hardly ever used the programmable buttons so I wont miss them.
The heater buttons are different and in my opinion fail the user interface. There is nothing to indicate the passenger and the driver button when pushed cycle through different airflow programs. Unlike the 2006 there is no iDrive interaction to the climate function.
The CD and DVD slot are now merged into one combination DVD/CD slot. When you load a new version of the navigation software it is uploaded to the hard disk in the car. You don?t keep the navigation DVD in the slot. In fact I have not received a copy of the DVD as in prior cars.
Just below the DVD/CD slot are programmable buttons. Where you program often used either navigation locations, music, radio or god knows what else. I really like having my home location programed on the first button.
iDrive - This is a fast piece of electronics well matched to the performance of the car. The 2006 was slow in comparison. The new iDrive is without question faster. The real question which I haven?t resolved is - is it better? In someways yes and in other no.
The learning curve is steep. What you have learned in the past iDrives you have to unlearn. The iDrive is still not the most intuitive. It is now menu and button driven no more icons or quadrants for particular functions. You use buttons which naturally fall under your fingers and are easy to find. Once I got accustomed to their location they?re easy to use. I actually like this better.
Overall what has improved is text entry which is quick, better maps. What is less than stellar is the lack of intuitive design in the interface. The problem quite simply is there are times you need to go to settings to set something up and at times use the ?option? key but it is not consistent or intuitive which to use. I?ll get used to it just like I did with the other. A good example is two days ago I happened across the capacity of the hard disk drive in the car. I wanted to take a picture of the screen today to upload with the other pictures and verify the capacity. I?ll be damned if I can find that particular screen. The screen had the drive capacity 1250 MB (I think it is correct) and a large picture of a drive.
There are quirks in the navigation search. The other day I was looking for a particular school where I was to meet a group for league tennis. I couldn't find the high school in any of the lists - in the old version of iDrive I could. More curiously I used the category of government to search thinking a school might be listed in this category. Not one listing was of a government office in Colorado. They were all at least over a 1,000 miles away in Mexico. I didn?t know Colorado joined Mexico.
Stereo/smartphone integration - The integration of the iPhone is nice. However what I was hoping for was the ability to grab the addresses from the iPhone and use them for navigation. That is not yet possible at least with my Mac based iPhone. I?m hopping a software update on the iPhone or from BMW will rectify this problem. The manual is fairly clear you should be able to get the addresses directly from a smart phone.
I did buy the iPhone cradle which not only charges the phone but allows the music stored on the iPhone to be played in the car. That works really well. What doesn?t work well is the tray that holds the phone in the center console. It is just plain awkward to get to the phone or in particular open the storage compartment below. You open the lid then you have to make sure you prop open the lid and then try to push the button on the tray to flip that up while driving. It would have been nice to use one of the two available buttons to open up the lid and the other open up the lid and the tray to give you access to the storage area.
New Features I like:
Lane Departure Warning - Nice. It is a really very nice subtle reminder to pay attention when you drift while twiddling the iDrive. Since I had gone through the Driving Experience with my last 650i I have really come to appreciate driving with precision. It sure let me know I?m not as precise as I think.
Adaptive Cruise Control - This is very cool. It is great on the highway slows you down and speeds you up to automatically keep you at a safe distance from the car in front of you. It is nice to just let the car take care of the speed modulation for you. If you have to deal with stop and go traffic it does bring the car to a complete stop and holds it there. If there is no one in front of you and you enter a curve at a speed the cruise control think is too fast it will do what it can to slow the car down. There are two things you have to watch out for. It can?t recognized cars already stopped and on curves, particularly sharp curves, it may loose track of the car in front and start to accelerate. I like it.
MyInfo - The coolest feature! What it does is it allows you to email directly to the car from Google Maps a location you want to go to. It is simple elegant and incredibly useful. Last week I had my niece visit and we took tours through Denver and the rest of Colorado. I used Google maps to locate things like the Molly Brown House, Trail Ridge Road (the highest paved road in the US at slightly more than 12,000 Feet) and other point of interest from the comfort of my desk. It just worked flawlessly. No cost and very cool.
Start/Stop button now puts the car in Park when you turn it off.
The best features I find indispensable which also were on my 2006:
HUD - I think is a must. If you use navigation it is one very nice way to get the directions without having to be interrupted by a voice or constantly checking the map display to making sure you are on track to go where you want to go.
Comfort Access I love walking up to my car and not fumble getting out a key or a key fob and opening the door and driving off.
HD Radio has such clear sound. When you can get its great. The 2010 has HD radio as standard with the added benefit of having access to the sub or secondary radio station.
Disappointments:
Satellite Radio - I wish I hadn?t bothered with it. I rarely used on the last car and with the input options for entertainment through USB, in car storage of music, and just connecting to what I have loaded on my iPhone I can?t think of running out of stuff to be entertained by. The only exception is if I was to do a long cross country trip. I probably will not renew the subscription once the first year free access is over.
Lock & Unlock notification - With Comfort Access it is nice to know the car has locked as you walk away. I sure don?t need it to tell me with an obnoxious beep that the doors are unlocked particularly since I?m standing next to the car and grasping the handle. The 2006 had the option of turning lock notification on and keep the unlock from beeping.
Lack of internal storage - the cabin has next to no storage and lost some with the additional tray for the phone. The pockets in the door really don?t fit most sunglasses or their cases particularly if you have wrap around style sunglasses you still have no good place to put them.
As of this writing the 2010 has just gone over 900 miles. I like it more. It has the features I like. Best of all the ride is more comfortable and although I?ve not yet driven it to its potential it feels precise, more sure footed and with smoother acceleration. The car seems more evolved.
Nice car!
06-11-2009, 03:30 PM
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My Ride: 2004 645cic, 20" asanti wheel with KW Coilover Variant 3
NICE! 
but there is one thing that i just don't get it? If your car is a push button start. Then why do you still need to put your key in ignition? on all the BENZzzz you can put the key in your pocket and you still can start your car! i just don't get it???
but there is one thing that i just don't get it? If your car is a push button start. Then why do you still need to put your key in ignition? on all the BENZzzz you can put the key in your pocket and you still can start your car! i just don't get it???
06-11-2009, 04:40 PM
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Great post, thanks for all the great info!!
I've noticed some of the details but the smaller stuff that you only realize after owning and driving are nicely documented!
You dont have to put your key in the ignition... my 7 has comfort access and I just keep the key in my pocket. The new 7 series doesn't even have a keyslot anymore.
I've noticed some of the details but the smaller stuff that you only realize after owning and driving are nicely documented!
Originally Posted by RC688' post='908338' date='Jun 11 2009, 04:30 PM
NICE!
but there is one thing that i just don't get it? If your car is a push button start. Then why do you still need to put your key in ignition? on all the BENZzzz you can put the key in your pocket and you still can start your car! i just don't get it???
but there is one thing that i just don't get it? If your car is a push button start. Then why do you still need to put your key in ignition? on all the BENZzzz you can put the key in your pocket and you still can start your car! i just don't get it???
06-13-2009, 07:26 PM
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My Ride: 2008 550i sport
Awesome detailed write up. This was enjoyable to read from start to finsih, unlike most other long posts. The corresponding pics were perfectly placed. What a beautiful car. Hope you have many fun years with it.
