I understand that. I would put a 7 series squarely in the luxury category. But I don't think that a 7 series is in any way the ultimate BMW, it is there for status and image. The brand will stand for different things for everyone, but to me BMW stands for driving, not luxury. I think a 3 series is probably the purest embodiment of that.

Tony Hogg, writing in Road & Track, possibly before many posters here were born, defined a sports car as "a vehicle that doesn't have anything on it that doesn't make it go faster". He was discussing the original Cobra. I like that definition, and extend it myself as follows: The more luxury features are on a car, the less sporty it is.

I realize that BMW ventured a fair way down the road away from sports cars when they went into SUVs. However, the original E53 SUV kept a lot of the BMW spirit. The E70, much less so. A loaded up E70, even less so. All IMO, of course. But if it keeps BMW profitable, and therefore provides them sufficient funds to develop new (smaller) sporty cars, then it is all good.

My 2007 had the e-brake lock in place and I had to release it manually. Then could not reset it. I ended up with 2 visits to the dealer before it was fixed under warrenty.

Well, I just had the "parking brake malfunction!" light come on, while the brake was engaged! I had to release it manually, so now I don't have any parking brake at all. I'm just under 10,000 miles. We don't use the auto-hold feature, but we do set the brake every time we park....

The bummer is, I just got it back from the dealer on Thursday afternoon (hitch install, oil change and an open campaign to replace a charge air temperature sensor.) I don't think the malfunction is related to the hitch install, but who knows....

Back to the dealer I guess.....:(


Oh, and I learned that the clowns at the dealer where I bought it (different dealer than the hitch installer) didn't get our BMW Assist activated, so I've got to get that taken care of too.

i just got a brake malfunction JUST NOW. i guess i wont be going to work today or i will try but what's this thing i hear about a brake cable? That i can use it to manually release the brakes? Can anyone please tell me where this cable is located? I have a 2007 X5 3.0si. Thanks in advance

Oh and also let me also add that its 30-35 degrees Fahrenheit right now and i tried leavin around 6am in the morning. Damn this suckssssss. .i just came back from the dealer shit too about a week ago for a brake light malfunction. :(

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EDIT: okay i found the manual release..i thought it was a cable more like a hole n key kind of thing. But anyways i did it and it STILL DOES NOT work. It keeps saying "Transmission Park Malfunction" oh man. OH MAN and yeah the dealership is not open yet either.
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EDIT: okay well i found the brake cable to release the hand brakes. so right now my car is at the dealership gettin serviced.

What you just did is the transmission park release, that has nothing to do with the emergency brake unfortunately.

Question on Autohold. I see on certain X5's a button for Autohold next to the parking brake but mine doesn't have that. Did they add Autohold for 2008 or does mine simply not have a way to switch it off?

Who are you responding to? :dunno:

The transmission park manual release is under the front left cup holder, the parking brake manual release is in the back behind the driver's side cover.

Oddly enough, my parking brake reset itself back to normal function after the manual release, and it hasn't malfunctioned since. Lucky I guess....

Lowell_B I assume.

My auto hold feature has never worked correctly since I got the car. Nearly 2 years ago. It's being back at the dealers endless times for them to fix it. They are aware of some low level error codes that have being logged due to auto hold not working correctly but even after 2 years don't know how to fix the issue.

My problem is simply that once auto hold is switched on and the car is being held by autohold. It will randomly switch itself off and default back to regular park mode without me touching anything or moving off the seat (safety feature).

It's annoying because sometimes you don't realize and apply the gas to move off and of course you can't because auto hold is now off and the normal park break is applied.

The dealer raised a puma case and got the regional BMW rep to look at it but they don't seem to care about it. Pretty lame really.

It's not just BMW that's moving to electronic handbrakes, rather all German makes. Audi and Opel (yes, in the Buick Regal) have shifted to it as well. Along with electronic shifters, the electric park brake saves dash space for bigger cupholders, so say the automakers.

I still would prefer a manual handbrake. It's one less thing to manually release when the battery dies, and one less thing to break.