[sjs]

Long story short - I finally got mine installed last week, and it took four days.

This all started back in July, when I picked up my car after having ordered it from Germany in May. I didn't want leather or SP, but I did want power seats, satellite radio, Nav, PDC, fold down rear seat, etc. I knew the new MOST bus adapter was coming, so I had my CA put it in the paperwork for my car, along with the Alarm, which I STILL don't have yet. He quoted $444 installed back in July, and since no pricing had been announced, I figured he just ballparked it and knew I would bite, which I did. I was probably the first one to mention to him that this was the NEW one I wanted, that fully integrated with iDrive. Turns out, that what I thought at the time represented a nice fat profit for the dealership, is in retrospect one of the more affordable installs of this unit, especially if they had charged me for the actual labor time they spent! People are getting quoted 500 or 600 bucks, and I actually got it much cheaper. Except for the time without my car, that is.

I had received a call in late August that the adapter and the alarm were in, come on down, so I took my "Due Bill" I'd had since getting the car in and spent a Saturday morning in the lounge while they realized that neither of the parts they had was right. It wasn't the new iPod adapter which they learned right away (Thanks clueless parts guys!), and the alarm would go in but could not be programmed, so I left with a "we'll call you" and a free car wash for my trouble, which was nice.

I finally got the call about 3 weeks ago to come back in for the iPod adpater, they now had the new ones, and they could do my car. I had been out of town for Labor Day, so I had to schedule for after I got back. I also wanted to get a loaner BMW for the day it woud take, so that meant I had to wait another week or so (lead time on the loaners being what it is). I figured, having the loaner will be a nice thing to try, I never had this from the Honda dealer, so why not?

So, I drop the car off at 8 AM last Monday, and take off in my loaner. Man and I glad I got the loaner. I get a call that the're going to need it over night, keep the loaner car, we'll be done tomorrow. I get the call on Tuesday that the adapter is installed, but they can't get the car to take the new programming. Turns out my car doesn't even HAVE one of the computer modules that needs to be upgraded in order to take the latest software, so they have to get one sent from NJ and have BMW issue some sort of vehicle change request or something like that to get it sent.

This was apparently not installed by the factory because I did not get BMW Assist/Bluetooth when I had the car built, and this chip or component is only needed now. So, another day's wait. I get the call on Wednesday that they are STILL not able to get my car updated, but on Thursday, it should be ready. I get the call on Thursday (4 days!) that I can now pick up my car, and when I get there, the paperwork shows the last delay was because my satellite radio unit failed during the software update and had to be replaced also.

The good news is, I popped my iPod in right there in the service drive up bay, and it worked right away with no problem. I also confirmed my Sat radio worked, and the single-disc CD player still works now was well. The iDrive menu shows "CD CD1 CD2 CD3" etc, and of course iDrive thinks the iPod is a huge CD changer.

On to my thoughts on the product:

I agree with the folks that say it sounds better than the AUX jack between the seats. I have a fair bit of 128 kbps AAC bought from iTunes, but everything I rip myself is 160 kbps and they sounds great too. However, I have a 60 GB iPod with more than 10,000 songs total and man, does it slow to a crawl when trying to navigate directly into Artists, Albums, etc. I know it says so in the manual, but it REALLY CAN take a minute (literally 60 seconds or almost) to load up the content from a loaded iPod. I'm going to have to make and use playlists for most of what I know I want to listen to on a long trip. It's nice to know I can get to anything in the iPod library, but it takes a while.

The other thing that you notice is that the iDrive wheel does NOT use scrolling acceleration like the iPod Click wheel itself does, and man, that really sucks. Forget about scrolling to Warren Zevon right from artists! My idea: Make a smart Playlist for each section of the alphabet to make this work better. Still poking around with this.

Also: Why does it start playing the first thing in any list once you navigate to the Genre or Artists or Albums listing? I'd like to to NOT automatically hear AC-DC every time when I'd rather navigate to a different artist directly. Also, it stops playing the current song when you go up the menu to start browsing by another option, like moving from album to artist. Speaking of artists, it also doesn't have a sub-menu for albums within the artist section. You want all your Beatles? OK, here's every song from each album, in order in one big list, with no grouping logically by album. You want to go just to the white album? Well, if you know what song starts that album, scroll to it manually (wait for it, it will take forever to get there) or go over to the albums section (which kills current audio playback) and then spend your next 5 minutes scrolling to "White album" alphabetically. This could be LOTS better. It could work like the iPod itself, for instance.

All in all, I really DO like the solution, but it definitely has some annoyances. I have no idea if these will ever be fixed or improved, but my advice for now is "know what you want to listen to and make a playlist for that" knowing that your whole library is there if you want it, but somewhat painful to actually navigate in reality if you have lots of songs.

I also do like the new "Auto Accept" on the legal screen, but haven't really noticed the narrower font too much. I do like the easier access to the "information" in the Nav menu, but I'm still not clear on the difference between Information on location and Information on Destination. Anyone understand that? What's the deal here?

Also, I asked it for restaurants a few days ago, just to play around with the Navigation, and now it still show restaurants on the assist window (Map direction of travel, which I leave up all the time) everywhere I drive, even after having put in a new destination to try and get it to forget about that. This is after multiple re-boots and turning the car off and back on. I don't care about restaurants anymore! Stupid car! Be more forgetful!

Finally, the new SW seems faster at some things, but every now and then, will simply freeze for 5-10 seconds when trying to scroll through some options (typically in the nav menus) and that's kind of annoying. Any one else seen this?

All in all, a very interesting couple of weeks. SCBMW was great about the whole process, though, and my SA was nice and very friendly and helpful. Such is the world of high-tech cars.

My advice: Get the loaner!

-Steve

[MusicMan]

Wow, what a nightmare. At least it's working, unlike other members. The more a read about this integration, the less attractive it seems. Not to mention the ridiculous install prices.

[Ucan]

Nice that you got it all worked out. After reading all the problems regarding MOST adapter, installation issues and of course the cost, I'm leaning towards waiting for some time. In a couple of months services will learn how to install the adapter faster and better (which means cheaper and problem free) and/or third parties may come up with new OEM substitutes(Dension, Alpine etc.)

Enjoy!

Ucan

[Vinobien]

Mine was installed flawlessly - worked right away. I came to the same conclusions as sjs above. Make playlists and be patient.

[martieg]

You asked about the difference between "On Destination" and "On Location". When you are navigating towards a destination, the location is your current location.

When you search places from the database, the system will sort the options based on distance (closer first) from the Destination or your current Location.

That's very useful!

[sjs]

Originally Posted by lecatrache

You asked about the difference between "On Destination" and "On Location". When you are navigating towards a destination, the location is your current location.

When you search places from the database, the system will sort the options based on distance (closer first) from the Destination or your current Location.

That's very useful!

Ahh! I understand now. Got it. I'm still trying to figure out a way to help my nav system ignore restaurants by location, I keep getting little knife and fork symbols as I drive around. I haven't had a ton of time to work on this, though.

Thanks for the clarification!

-Steve

[martieg]

While navigating, and after you search information on location, you can get rid of all the symbols (knives for restaurants, glass cups for bars, etc) by going to the left side icons and clicking on the "i" (information) to disable it.