Ugly 7

I have to say that I am incredibly dissappointed with the new seven series design. When I saw the magazine articles showing the hideous car and read the horrid reviews, I decided to withold judgement because cars do look different in person than they do in person.

I just recently went to my local BMW dealer and confirmed that the car is disgusting. The rear end is by far the worst, and the whole eyebrow theme in the front sounds cool in theory, but is not executed well at all. I decided to take a test drive to see how the car drove, because after all, BMW is the ultimate driving machine, not the ultimate beautiful looking machine.

The car drives amazingly. For a 200+ inch long car, it handles like a 3 series, without much body lean at all. The engine is absolutly amazing, and good sounding too. Two things dissappointed me about the interior though. First is the iDrive system. I sat in the parking lot for 15 min playing with the damn thing and didn't have it figured out the least. The salesman who was showing me the car actually uttered these words, "The best thing about the iDrive system is that you don't have to use it, it's all voice controlled." That's just plain sad. The second dissappointment was the lightness of the steering wheel. The effort required feels more like that of a 60s muscle car than of a current BMW.

Overall, a total dissappointment. I wish that BMW will at least make the iDrive system an option in the upcoming five and six series, however, the prospects of that seem doubtful. Falling sales of the new seven already, however, may make BMW consider making the system an optoin even on the seven. Let's just pray that the design and iDrive system don't make it into the three series. It'll take all the fun out of driving the car

I felt the same way as you about the exterior initially. When I first saw the 745Li at the Los Angeles Auto Show, my hopes for the in-person impression outdoing the photograhpic impression were quickly dashed.

That said, the exterior has since grown on me to bounds that I would have thought impossible. As implied in the first paragraph, I live in Los Angeles, and 745's are everywhere. Seeing them in a real world context has let me see what Chris Bangle (the designer) was referring to when he said the car has "presence." It looks like a royal vehicle amongst a mass of plebians. It almost looks too nice to be driven, as if it should be put back in a museum.

I found your comments on iDrive particularly interesting. If I might ask, how old are you? I had no trouble what-so-ever learning iDrive; in fact, within 15 minutes I was completely comfortable with it. That's not to say that I remembered how to to all 700+ functions that it offers, but I could definitely navigate the system seamlessly, never making a wrong step. It's actually a tremendously intuitive system, and from what I've heard from owners, you pick it up within the first week of ownership. And remember, that's what counts, it's not whether you can learn it on a test drive.

Do you have any references for the poor sales of the 7? I have periodically checked various BMW dealers - just for the sake of curiosity - to see how sales are, and they are constantly running a waiting list. Not one dealership has been able to keep them in stock.

Interesting that the LA dealerships continually run a waiting list for those cars. I live in Colorado, and while origionally people were sighning up for those cars like mad, now the demand has backed off considerably. My local BMW dealer has perhaps 10 sitting on their lot and plenty of orders.

About iDrive. It's true that I didn't spend much time getting used to the system. And, according to one of the car magazines, after spending about one week with the car iDrive, it's not so bad. I was probably just intimidated by the system initially. I do, however, not see the point for having the ability to adjust 700 things on the car; it just seems not very bmw-ish. What is wrong with regular buttons for the climate control and for the radio? Further, why put 700 adjustable things in a car when probably 90% of the purchasers will never adjust 1/3 of those settings?

I guess with regards to iDrive, I wish they'd make it optional for those people who would rather not have their dashboard with a hole for a TV. I cringe thinking about the possibility of BMW making it standard on the 5 and 6 series aswell.

iDrive is like MS Word. The very first time you use it, it may look scary. Given time, and it becomes easier and easier.

I've played with IDrive, and although I couldn't currently operate it while I was on the road, I didn't have a problem with the interface. I guess that comes with being a 19 year old computer geek, eh?

i dont know i think the 7 looks damn good it takes time to get used to it but once you do its not all that bad, esp if the color is black