BMW’s cars give you more control than ever over how they drive, but not every setting sticks the way you’d expect. During discussions with BMW engineers at the iX3 media launch, the topic of “ saving the last driving mode memory” came up, and the explanation reveals both a technical truth and a regulatory annoyance.
At a basic level, BMW’s iDrive X does allow the car to start up in whatever mode you were using when you shut it off. If you parked the car in Personal, Efficient, or Silent, it will wake up in that same mode on the next drive. That part works exactly how owners expect. Where things start to differ is in the Sport mode. Even if you drove the entire day in Sport and parked the car that way, the next startup won’t bring it back. Sport always resets.
The reason isn’t a missing feature or a software oversight. It comes down to homologation. Since Sport mode changes efficiency and drivetrain behavior, regulators treat it differently. If automakers allowed Sport to be the default, they’d be required to certify the vehicle in that mode as well, which would affect the official consumption and emissions numbers. BMW isn’t about to do that, so Sport remains the one mode the car won’t automatically return to.
Interestingly, while you can’t set Sport as a remembered startup mode, you can still work around the limitation. BMW’s new Routines feature lets owners bundle a series of actions—seat adjustments, climate settings, turning off the speed warning, and yes, driving mode—into a single prompt that appears when the car starts. Tap the screen or say “Yes,” and the system loads everything, including Sport. It’s not fully automatic, because you must confirm the change, but it gets you most of the way there without breaking any rules.
For now, that’s the reality: BMW will remember your last mode as long as it’s not Sport, and if you want to start every drive in the sportier setting, you’ll need a Routine to bridge the gap. It’s a small detail, but for enthusiasts who buy these cars for how they drive, it’s one of those quirks that stands out more than BMW probably intended.
