new iDrive Rear View Camera Load Time = FAST!

[mtech8]

At my local dealers yesterday, only had a few moments with the X5M since I had rush off to a meeting. I had the sales give me the key (to a X5M that hadn't been powered up all morning).

I opened and unlocked the door by grabbing onto the handle (via comfort access). Started up the car (wow the tone that car produced gave me chills.. so nice), and immediately tried to put the car in reverse.

The iDrive itself came up very fast and the rear view camera was instant! The way it should be.

Oddly, the actual display of the rear view camera did not span the size of the display. It was on split view with the PDC shown in the window on the right, but the rear view camera did not fill up with window on the left (some empty space left over).

I pressed the Menu button which takes us directly to the system setting menu (in the old iDrive, it's pressing down on the iDrive controller at the default screen) and tried to look for a way to reconfigure the screen setting, but couldn't find it. I didn't have time to play with it. I'm sure it's somewhere not too hard to find, just not in the same place as the previous iDrive. I did notice that when the rear view camera is up, there are options that you can adjust directly on that screen (ie: show pathlines and show obstacles).

In retrospect, I forgot to look at the screen resolution (which wouldn't have been accurate due to the bright sun that morning). I didn't see top view. And to think of it, the empty space could have been a result of (1) still low resolution camera or (2) the empty space for the side view/top view thing (just not activated).

On a side note, after my meeting, I called my sales guy to inquire about trading in my 2008 X5 4.8. He said sell it outside and ask for $57K-60K. The dealership was only willing to offer $50K. Guess I'm gonna keep my car and not think about going into a 35d anymore.

I know it's been said a lot that we can't retrofit the new iDrive system into our cars. But I hope that turns out to be false. At less than 10K, I'd still do the retrofit as selling and buying a new car for the iDrive would cost me much more out of pocket.