Things I might have liked to know before picking up my X5

[bsklar]

Have had my X5 now about a month and now would like to post some of the items that I would have liked to know before buying. Other owner's personal experience may differ:

1. Sport 4.8i with 19inch wheels corners well and leaves you as the driver in great command of the vehicle.

2. Transmission is a little jerky and slow to learn driving patterns. I find myself babying the vehicle in order to have it drive more smoothly. Another design issue is that the electronic shifter has the P button on top. Be careful with this as this is a natural place to rest your right hand and I wonder if anyone has accidentally engaged the P mode with a little pressure. Seems an odd place to put it.

3. Have the Comfort seats. Love the multi-adjustments of the seat. They have a little too much bounce in them and I would like to sit in the sport seat to see if it has the same bounce.

4. Memory Function for stearing wheel settings is random in its recall. Sometimes tilt wheel renews its position. Other times it does not all with the same key.

5. Memory keys corresponding to I-Drive for radio, aux or cd funcitions is intermittent in its response. Maybe will work better upon refresh of the software. Thought it was that you had to set the radio memory from presets rather than manual tuning but it is intermittent in either case. There are many other functions that you would like to use for these memory keys. Maybe in the future.

6. Have Blackberry 8703 from Verizon. Bluetooth recognizes the phone but only grabs a small portion of the address book. Other issues are that it is slow to finish the bluetooth link so if you want to use speed dial from the blackberry, you have to wait. Also if you exit the vehicle even though the manual indicates that you can resume talking on your handset, I have been unable to get this feature to work. Also difficult to pick up the cell and go private if you do not want the call broadcast any longer to the passengers.

7. Sound Sytem and Multi CD Changer. CD Changer will play mp3 and wma burned disks. Single CD by AC will not. I-Drive has great difficulty with Discs that have been burned this way. You can force it to access the later directories/songs on the disk but you must force turn it past the point that it wants to go naturally.

8. Rear Camera/ Alerts. Rear View System is not as good as on my other vehicles. Its default setting from factory is too dim and can be brightened not from the idrive settings with the rest of the controls but from the actual screen as pointed out by another post. The two real issues are that it does not enable quickly enough upon putting car in reverse and more bothersome is that it stays on way too long after putting the car in drive. This is a problem as you cannot use other idrive functions until it goes off. The manual button below on the dash is the overide but unfortunate if that is the only way around this. Maybe someone on this wonderful board will know how to shorten the time it stays engaged.

9 Sunroof and wind tilt. Having noise issues with both sunroof and wind tilt. When sunroof is open, ther is only a fabric buffer to prevent buffeting and noise. Does an ok job with the buffeting syndrome. Does a really poor job otherwise. Also have noticed a howling noise whenever the fresh air tilt position for the dual sunroofs is engages. Would be interested in knowing if others are experiencing either of these issues.

10 Rear Entertainment System. Screen is bothersome in the down position because it does interfere both with my elbow resting on the center armrest and prevents opening the center armrest. We leave it in the up position which may be a problem with getting unnecessary scratch from kids getting in our out of the back seat. Dealer forgot the wireless headphones but ordered them and delivered a week later. Real issues with the system is that the remote makes it difficult for kids to use and this is part of the reason to have the system. Should have been play, stop, pause to keep kids happy. One significant other issue for our daughter is that when you turn off car at grocery and then come back and re-start vehicle, it starts the dvd over rather than continuing from where you left off. All of our other vehicles have not done this.

11.a Third Row seats and impact on second row seats. Second row seats provide ample room only when they are slid back. It seems that there is about a 2 inch slide that is adjusted beneath each side of the second row. The problem is that in the back position, it makes opening the third row seats impossible. Several have taken off the rear headrests because the third row seats are so deep but this does not help with this problem. To keep good access to using third row without having to move around to adjust the 2nd row, you must leave the 2nd row in only an intermediate legroom position. The other problem with the third row seats is that most small children will completely disappear. No line of site to them. It is like they are in a whole. They also cannot obviously see the rear entertainment. It is OK to do short trips but most kids would be unhappy back there for a trip to the beach. No video, no happy kid. No happy kid, no happy parrent. Another reason to maybe ditch the BMW rear entertainment and go with the headrest version. Range Rover Sport did this and it would work much better for this situation. One final word about 2nd row access is that doors do not provide a generous opening to the second row based on how the wheel base and length were changed. Would only likely be an issue with larger people getting in our out of car. Take a look. You will be surprised at the opening.

11.b Another issue with the rear entertainment. Some kids will not where the headphones and if you want to play the rear dvd thru the car's speakers you must unplug your aux (IPOD/Other MP3) input. In addition, the brochure indicates that the DVD is a changer. The November Builds do not include a changer. It is a singe disc version and the CD changer in the glove box is CD Only. No DVD.

12 Remote key fob opens rear hatch lock only intermittently. I have found myself enabling the arm while trying to repeatedly use the device to open the rear hatch when it does not open on the first click.

13. Center armrest is a double open. Latches are not smooth like the glove box and require a little more force than you would like to open. Should open more smoothly and there may be a way to adjust.

14. Windshield wipers are noisy.

15. Gas mileage is 13/14 city, 17/18 highway. I have never been able to improve it in the 4.8 varying driving to see if it would make a difference. Based upon the literature, I was expecting better especially with all of the lighter alloy body cladding.

16. NAV system works well but voice of instruction lady is hard to hear if you are listening to any kind of music or programming while also using the NAV. This may be picky but it would be nice to be able to adjust her volume rather than just turning her on or off.

-Resolved with help from Boxsterfeet and Gilles. Volume is not adjustable in I-Drive menus but can be adjusted while Nav Lady is talking and will hold.

17. Break Dust on wheels is unbelievable. I may try a different pad but my recommendation is to maybe add mudflaps when they are available as the black spots definitely show up quickly. Rear bumper being black also shows dirt very quickly even with frequent washings.

18. Trailer Hitch quote from my dealer has been quoted at $1200 installed. Seems a little high for an option that should likely be included on an SUV at this price. Any one doing better with their dealer??

19. Floor mats did not come with car and are still on order. Again, should at least be in stock with delivery of the vehicle. Mention this if you are ordering so they will come with the car.

20. AC/Heating System is noisy and not the best at heating or cooling. You can push the auto button three times for light medium and intensive flow but it really does not replicate what you would be expecting. To heat up a cold car in the morning you have to also hit the side buttons to turn off the top cold air flow. Main complaint is that the AUTO function does not handle your needs without IDRIVE or other manual changes.

21. First car with I-Drive and except for the issues with the shortcut buttons listed above, I really like it. Takes about two weeks and then it becomes second nature. Tried to teach the wife to use it today and she cursed. Maybe it needs a lock feature.

22. Brightness setting for I-Drive Screen does not hold and occasionally reverts back to factory default.

Sorry to list all these items but it is important to extoll some of the shortcomings and areas for improvement as well as the car's virtues. This vehicle is fun to drive. I would appreciate any feedback on these issues or any new issues that should be added to the list. This board is great and was very helpful to me in placing my order back in October.

[xnsf]

Wow...good job.
sooooo much information

As for #4, i don't think that's normal. you may want to have that checked.

[xnsf]

ooo...forgot...

[trueX5er]

Thanks for saying it how it is! I'll have to take these into consideration. (I'm also glad I didn't order 3rd row or entertainment). Several of these problems could be later adjusted by a BMW software update, like # 20, 16, 8, 5 , or even 2 and 15 so all hope is not lost.
Happy driving with your new ride!

[spacegray]

Very informative post... far better than the car mag reviews and hit all the points we're looking for in potentially purchasing this vehicle.

Thank you again - hopefully your issues get resolved soon.

Please post a follow up to say how well BMW Servicing has been willing to help you out.

- spacegray

[vroom9]

A cautionary tale to those who purchase a vehicle before seeing it & driving it in-person, especially a new/upgraded model. Why anyone would do this is beyond reason, IMO.

[marcx5]

the 'P' parking button on top of the shifter will not engage while driving... i tried it... but of course, try at your OWN risk, as 'who knows'.... but it 'should' be smart enough to not activate.

HOWEVER: the emergency parking brake LEVER below the shifter DOES work while driving... i tried that too..... but it seems you can let go of the lever and it releases, unless you come to stop first.

[JV]

Great post and information

[Praetorian]

Items 5 & 12 might be connected. This may be a problem with your remote, not the car. Just an idea...

Item 6, the Blackberry issues. Only getting a portion of the address book is a problem - maybe your address book is really large? The other problems you list are related to the Blackberry itself. I have the problem of the link screen freezing the screen every time I pair it to my headset. If my bluetooth headset powers off, the handset takes over automatically. To manually switch to the handset, click the wheel on the side and select HANDSET instead of the car's bluetooth or speakerphone. It is clunky, but that's the way the Blackberry is. Maybe the Apple iphone will be better!

I generally liked the iDrive when I tested the car, but I did find response time on it a bit slow (I tested the GPS on a 3 series). Maybe the processor is slow or the software isn't quite ready?

I didn't check this, but I thought that the Nav directions would mute the stereo or at least be at the same volume. This isn't the case? That sucks.

I've got to check the wipers, the loaner BMW gave me (z4) has noisy wipers and it's actually annoying.

Item 13, have you tried another X5 for the centre armrest? Maybe yours has a problem, or are they all like that?

AC/Heat being loud will really annoy me.

Mine is still delayed, I'm going to check out these things tomorrow at my dealer. I hope I don't find the same things, or I may cancel my order.

PS. what do you think of the stereo?


Thanks for the info, though!

[chiefneil]

A lot of these sound like standard BMW issues carried over. I can't understand why BMW can't make a quiet, efficient a/c system like all the Japanese and American manufacturers. A guy who does auto a/c systems once explained why the BMW (and Mercedes) systems are so loud compared to other manufacturers - I forget the explanation other than that he also thought it was strange that they designed their systems the way they did. I've had an E36, E46, and E53 and the a/c systems have slowly gotten better but are still loud and poorly-performing compared to most anything else.

Memory keys - yeah, I finally disabled those functions in my E46 and E53 too. They always seemed to be pretty random on what they would remember and were more trouble than they were worth. On many occasions I'd drive somewhere and park, and when I came back to the car everything would get changed to different settings.

I don't know what the story is with BMW's user interface and ergnomics team for the electronic stuff. I think they suck, personally, and never seem to learn from experience. Thank god the performance and handling teams are on the ball!