BrummyGit

I am waiting on delivery of a 2007 520d in the UK. Because this is a company car my options list was very short as I pick up the bill for any options.

Standard procedure in our company is that before the recipient gets any new company car, it is butchered by the local car phone fitters who will fit a standard Nokia HF kit - usually resulting in ratlles, missing screws and often problems with the radio afterwards. What a way to treat a brand new car

Anyway my question is whether a standard spec UK 520d SE will have any bluetooth functionality or if even basic connectivity needs to be paid for as an option? The Peugoet 607 Exec I am driving now has a full HF phone built in, yet the fools still fitted a Nokia Kit - killing the front drivers-side speakers and scratching my centre console in the process.

Thanks

bruce_miranda

After this you at least get a Nokia HF because the base SE comes with nothing whatsoever. Most annoying is that now you will have two buttons on your steering wheel that are completely useless and cannot even be reconfigured for another function. I don't even know what the iDrive will look like with Nav, Bluetooth or advanced air con.

BrummyGit

Thanks, at least I know. I was hoping that there might be basic bluetooth connectivity but not to worry. I'll just keep an eye on the carphone hooligans instead.

Hawkwing

Forgive the obvious here - why not convince your company to pay for an integral system e.g. praise the hands free safety, and the no de-install cost that comes along for the ride here - substitute the cost paid to the local phone 'butchers' for the BT or Telematics option (circa UK?525-ish from memory) - you might need to pay out for the UK?60 cradle if you go this route yourself, but that's not hardship! I allow this with all my guys when they obtain new cars as I'd rather they had the best safe solution/cost available ...................

BrummyGit

I agree that would be a very pragmatic solution, but sadly my employer runs a very large fleet and the fleet dept maintain a "rules is rules" policy - except for Audi where I think they had problems with warranty claims due to car kit installations damaging the radios. To be fair, they do fit high quality genuine Nokia kits with bluetooth and external aerials which work well, but the fitters work to a price rather than quality and so installations can be a little questionable.