[ItsGary]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Go find a 25 year-old car with a factory analog car phone. How old are the BMW models that lost their 2G iDrive connectivity when the cellular system was shut down? At least in terms of electronics, today's cars in 40 years will be paperweights.....

I don't see how iDrive has anything to do with restoring the vehicle for the following reasons.

1) 2G Network was slow to begin with
2) Its possible to retrofit a 4G combox
3) Most people use their phone for maps anyways
4) Everything else was really a gimmick

You gotta remember when the E90 came out, smartphones weren't the best. They were basic at most with a few cool features.

Also, now there's companies that sell retrofit CarPlay Units/Android Auto Units

I used the E9X as an example because it was one of the generations that had the 2G connectivity which is now offline.

[Meeni]

Originally Posted by heavyD^2

It will be available the same way they do it today by extracting it from the ground. People like to associate automobiles with O&G but the truth is that we use byproducts in nearly everything in our day to day lives like chemicals, plastics, lubricants, power generation, heat generation, the asphalt we all drive on, etc. Planes for example emit more pollution than automobiles and there's no electric solution for them. Despite what the fear-mongers preach O&G is going away anytime soon so indeed keep your jewel car for restoration.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that if electric cars become so prevalent that no one in their right mind would even want to buy an ICE (think 500 miles per charge, charge 100 miles in 5 minutes, why would you even consider an ICE car at this point with higher operating costs and maintenance?), then getting gasoline may become difficult to obtain at retail, because gas stations would just disappear. Just the way public phone booth have been disappeared by the iPhone. In the next 20 years there will be enough leftover ICE cars to justify having at least one gas station serving any neighborhood. In 40 years they might all be gone and be as exotic as milkman delivery is today.

[Manivxr]

M cars yes. The rest of the mass produced line up. No

[GenXer]

Originally Posted by MarkDemma

My guess is that the problem with restoring cars from our current time period in say, 50, 75 years will be the electronics. Have any spare IEEE-488 or RS-232 cables laying about? That's what you'd need to connect to a printer from the 80s. The "classic" cars people are restoring now are pretty simple things, imagine if you needed to replace an ECU or sensor when that tech would be beyond obsolete.

Also, if things are bad enough due to climate change in 50 years, ICE cars might be totally banned by that point.

This is what the multi-million dollars McLaren F1 needs to make any engine adjustment.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11...op-maintenance

[MParallel]

Just shy of 25 years, but my E36’s carphone is still working.





For the young’uns...Libertel was what you now know as Vodafone.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by MParallel

Just shy of 25 years, but my E36’s carphone is still working.





For the young’uns...Libertel was what you now know as Vodafone.

This is great. Do you still use the phone, MParallel?

[MParallel]

Not much nowadays.

I used it everytime I drove it in the past when I had a dual-simcard for it.

This model also does SMS and has hands free mic.

And with MFL retrofitted and CD43 supporting ibus, it’s even more fun:





On my YT channel I have a few vids of it in action.

It’s now fitted to my M3.

[10"]

i think there are a few cars from the past couple of years (F model cars) that 'enthusiasts' (assuming they still exist 30+ years from now) will be restoring:

M2
M3/M4

Manual transmission cars only. I don't think anyone will be collecting fancy automatic gearboxes on these cars.

All the M cars beginning with E model code designation will continue to be desirable...

and no, iDrive makes no difference in collectability. If anything there is a kitsch value of time period correct electronics which it will retain. Always annoys me when people mention that incessantly....pointless.

[duder13]

Originally Posted by 10"

and no, iDrive makes no difference in collectability. If anything there is a kitsch value of time period correct electronics which it will retain. Always annoys me when people mention that incessantly....pointless.

Wow, after however many years, this may be the first thing I disagree with you on. Enthusiasts already talk about looking for iDrive-less cars, so I don't see why that wouldn't continue. It would be one thing if the nav screen was integrated lower into the climate control/stereo area, like many Porsches, but BMW's tendency to cut it into the dash is more intrusive, which is why I didn't want it. Having nav wasn't an issue to me when shopping for a 911 and Cayman in the past, but finding a car without iDrive was pretty high on my list when looking for a used E82.

That being said, I have no idea what the pricing delta would be, so maybe you are right in that it won't be much of an issue.

[Fritzer]

Manufacturers make cars to last for the lease term, not the long-term now-a-days.

Food for thought in this discussion.

[fastboatster]

what about diesels? say, if gas and diesel fuel from the oil become unavailable, somebody can start making their own biodiesel. I can imagine some Texan billionaire with imported g20 320d making biodiesel on their ranch

[fastboatster]

Originally Posted by duder13

Wow, after however many years, this may be the first thing I disagree with you on. Enthusiasts already talk about looking for iDrive-less cars, so I don't see why that wouldn't continue. It would be one thing if the nav screen was integrated lower into the climate control/stereo area, like many Porsches, but BMW's tendency to cut it into the dash is more intrusive, which is why I didn't want it. Having nav wasn't an issue to me when shopping for a 911 and Cayman in the past, but finding a car without iDrive was pretty high on my list when looking for a used E82.

That being said, I have no idea what the pricing delta would be, so maybe you are right in that it won't be much of an issue.

I don't know, I'd take an iDrive car if all else is equal - it just slightly more convenient than using OBC stalk.

[Meeni]

Originally Posted by Fritzer

Manufacturers make cars to last for the lease term, not the long-term now-a-days.

Food for thought in this discussion.

cars in the 70'/80' would rust to lace in 8 years and be considered shot at the 100k miles mark. Current models last a lot longer than that.

[duder13]

Originally Posted by Meeni

cars in the 70'/80' would rust to lace in 8 years and be considered shot at the 100k miles mark. Current models last a lot longer than that.

Yeah, my first car in high school (1993) was a five year old Chevy, and you would have thought it was at least 15 years old when comparing to today's cars.

[Cpatel]

40 years from now gasoline probably won't be sold and gas stations will be a thing of the past.

Change is hard to deal with but electric cars need to happen.

[chris719]

Originally Posted by GenXer

Most everyone is awed by BMWs from the past, and some restore them with lots of enthusiasm and reverence.

Fast forward 40 years from now. Will anyone in the future be restoring F and G generation vehicles like today's collectors do? Will anyone fuss over trying to restore a broken circuit from an LED headlamp and painstakingly reprint a circuit board to make it work? Or perhaps try to find an old computer to recode iDrive?

Have modern cars become as disposable as plastic bottles, or will future generations find today's BMWs worth restoring?

All cars, except a select few, will be disposable because of the electronics. It's not even just replacing PCB obsolete components that is the issue, it's the firmware that you can't get and really can't modify. I suspect future rebuilds of current cars will use 3rd party engine management for the most part. You could in theory read the firmware out of flash on a working example, but probably not on the newest cars that have actual security measures in place.

As cars get more and more software-heavy the likelihood you will be able to get it up and running 30 years from now gets lower and lower.

Once EVs take over it's going to be even harder.

[chassis]

Think about a car with software that prevents the engine from being started after a fixed time (years) or mileage. Similar to a printer ink jet cartridge. A warning could be given to the operator 24 months in advance, and again 12 months in advance. The warning would need to be acknowledged and dismissed by the vehicle operator in order to start the engine. By virtue of the software terms of use, the operator would then have accepted the planned obsolescence.

That sounds like a recurring revenue model for vehicle sales, which have been flatlined at 17 million units per year for the past 20 years in the United States.