slightly worse in that after a while it just stopped working altogether ... I took mine back to dealer and it spent three weeks in the shop as there is a new design fix for handbrake issues just been released by BMW globally for E70 X5's ... 99.9% of people will never experience an issue so not a recall situation... Once parts were in from germany it took only a day or so ..no issues with handbrake since then ... if you are still under warranty then suggest you enquire on this with your dealer directly and see if they can preorder the parts so that you can keep it on the road ... the last you want is unreliable handbrake issues ..