Official statement on the BMW 5 and 6 Series

29 Sep

Posted by Horatiu B. as Latest News

BMW has just released onto the web an official statement regarding the BMW 5 and 6 Series iDrive. Even though we already established that the 2009 5er and 6er will NOT receive the new iDrive Navigation system, but rather the new iDrive controller, it is still nice to see the official word from BMW North America.

Here is the email that I received this morning:

“I’m with BMW of North America, LLC. We want to clear up some confusion that appears to exist regarding iDrive. You may have noticed in the “build your own” section of BMWUSA.com or in some pictures posted on forums, that the new iDrive controller and buttons will be installed in the 2009 model year 5 Series and 6 Series. The software and functionality of the iDrive, however, will remain unchanged from the 2008 Model Year in these vehicles. In Model Year 2009, the 1 Series, 3 Series and 7 Series will be equipped with the new version of iDrive.

We hope this answers any questions that you may have had regarding the iDrive in the 5 Series and 6 Series. As always, if you have any questions, please contact us at 800-831-1117 or via email at customer.relations@bmwusa.com

9 Responses

Tim H

September 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
1

doesn’t look like an official BMW memo to me
Horatiu B.

September 29th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
2

@Tim H: Tim, it came straight from BMW NA Customer Relations department. I can’t post the contact info, but yes, it is official.
Gragop

September 29th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
3

Why would they lie? It confirms exactly what they’ve more or less implied for the last month. It makes sense too. They just released the updated/facelifted 5 and 6 and that was probably too soon fro the updated i-drive while the 3 gets updated, the 7 is entirely new, and the 1 has only had 6 months of production - much easier to correct on these models.
Joe

September 29th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
4

I saw the same release from BMW Canada. I sound like a broken record but this has been the case from day 1.
Benny

September 29th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
5

@Gragop: The 1-series drives around in Europe for quite some time now… It has not been produced for only half a year.
Raman

September 29th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
6

An identical email was also posted on the Bimmerfest forums -

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=315366
Gragop

September 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
7

@Benny:

Damnit! >:-( I should have known better…alright…I can’t explain why the 1 got it but I do have a handle on the 3 and 7!
Horatiu B.

September 30th, 2008 at 11:31 am
8

@Gragop: the 1er coupe is a new model obviously, so they will need to offer similar features as the 3 and 7, so it adds more value to it, especially since it comes with a high sticker price
bsd107

September 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
9

@Gragop:

Even if the 1 series had only been in production for 1 month (which is not true), why would that make it easier to update to the new nav system????