I have my car in Tahoe 3 Months a Year, and I always use the Headlight Washers. Without them the Headlights go very dim when the roads are a mess.

Are you leasing the car or buying the car?

If the car is ever gonna be parked outside, it's a must have feature to have. Since we don't have enough garage space, we park our 2004 3 er (that is used for commuting) outside. Now we wished we had cold weather package for that.

I got it for my X5. Use it once in a while when we leave a friends house late at night. Love the heated steering wheel the best! Eventually, it'll be parked outside when we get newer cars, so anticipating more use then.

This will be my second BMW, and I still didn't order heated seats or cwp, but for me, I could care less. For trips to the colorado mountains, it might prove to be useful once, but not worth my money, as I'll rarely (if ever) use it. I don't care for heated seats either, they tend to irritate my skin easily in the winter. And a snowboard doesn't fit in the ski bag :( I'm likely not the average Joe, but i just don't see the point in ordering/paying for options that I'm never going to use :) the car will be garaged as well - and since I lease it, I don't really keep resale in mind - just the fact that I get to pick out something née in 3 years :)

I do remember one other reason you may want the cold weather package. I have large hands and the base steering wheel has a small diameter. The sport package wheel is ideal but the elements in the heated steering wheel add some bulk that I find to be more comfortable than the normal wheel.

In cali, I would rather allocate the $1k to tint all my windows darker. The sun, not the cold, is your enemy.

:D I have both - aftermarket tint AND cold weather package

I had the cold weather package on my E46 3 series too - the difference with the X5 is the rear seat heaters and the HEATED STEERING WHEEL - this one feature has become one of my favorite aspects of the car. Here in Wisconsin I drive only 3.5 miles to work, but when I thumb that button on starting the car on winter mornings the heater has my steering wheel toasty warm by the time I leave my neighborhood. I like this even more than the heated seats; it really beats driving with gloves. I could take or leave the ski bag and headlight washers - you have to be on a pretty long trip for the headlights to get that filthy to reduce their effectiveness (and I hate how they spray all over the hood too....). I've thought about replacing the ski bag with that OEM storage module but I've heard it's pretty much worthless for usable space. My 2 cents...

Thanks to all for your replies. Very helpful:thumbup:

Wow that has to be illegal tint in WI. And WI is in the snowbelt---it was 80 degrees at 8:00 AM this morning driving into work.

Actually I'm legal at 20% back and 55% front - the photo is just from a good angle (try to look through the windows of the passenger side in the pic). It's pretty nice here at the moment - 82 degrees out now. But yes it can get bitterly cold in the winter...