BMWNA

I'm with BMW of North America, LLC. We want to clear up some confusion that appears to exist regarding iDrive. You may have noticed in the "build your own" section of BMWUSA.com or in some pictures posted on forums, that the new iDrive controller and buttons will be installed in the 2009 model year 5 Series and 6 Series. The software and functionality of the iDrive, however, will remain unchanged from the 2008 Model Year in these vehicles. In Model Year 2009, the 1 Series, 3 Series and 7 Series will be equipped with the new version of iDrive. We hope this answers any questions that you may have had regarding the iDrive in the 5 Series and 6 Series. As always, if you have any questions, please contact us at 800-831-1117 or via email at customer.relations@bmwusa.com.

Gene

Excellent, thank you for the clarification

hyethug015

thanks for the heads up

EBMCS03

WOW! Were you allowed to post that? That might have sabotaged your sales for 2009 5 series... some of us might have been misled and bought a 2009 thinking it was "new" although would become an unhappy customer but none the less bought a 2009 5 series. hehehe J/K the chances of that happening would have been slim.

Thanks for the clarification.

SFBimmer

Great customer relations!

Much appreciated

GT Premi

Well, if you have the new buttons but the old interface, that just means you will at least be able to upgrade to the new interface down the road. Us '04-'08 folks are S.O.L.

JSpira

How do you figure that to be the case?

GT Premi

What would be the point of the new controller configuration if it's not going to be able to use the new interface? That would be a waste of design money on an otherwise unchanged car. Just a hunch, basically.

Iceman

Since BMW makes more than just the 5series it would be a waste of money for them to have different parts in prouction.
It's much easier for them to install the new controller on the current models, than to keep the old parts plus have new ones for newer models.

The point is, they switch the controller because it makes their life easier.
The whole computer hardware and software behind it changes on the new models.
So the old models get new controllers, which can be used, but you can't put the new computer in the old models without trouble, since all systems were built to communicate with the old computer. They will not just work when you switch the computer and its software.
The controller is just a hardware piece without software needed, so it works on old models too. That's why they change it, for their convenience, not for ours.


We will not be able to use the new computer and the new software.






Let's say our car has a PC with Windows95.
They will bring out a PC with WindowsXP now with the new F10.

All the "games" we played used software designed for Windows95.
WindowsXP will not support those old games anymore.
You would need patches, which BMW will not deliver.

What they do is, they change the mouse. And the mouse is plug 'n play.

UUronL

You forget that some folks don't like change and don't like technology. iDrive as it exists today is pretty much accepted, but the new version might not make sense for this segment of the buying market. You have to assume that market research played a role in this decision.