BMW ICE 5 years behind?

[Condi]

Ed.Neumann said:

What Ford is £15k? New? That must have been some time ago now to have bought a new Ford saloon for £15k?
In 2004 the entry level 1.6 100hp saloon was £16000 on the road. But that is 20 years ago now.

Ford don't even offer a saloon anymore, they are all hatchbacks, all BMW hatchbacks have folding rear seats as standard, always have.
I thought Ford stopped selling the saloon with that 2004-2008 model?

You are comparing apples with apples yeah? Not comparing a hatch with a saloon?

Yeah, just looked at the G20 and it is now standard, along with loads of other stuff that used to be options. Oh, and now you don't have a choice of a BMW 3 Series saloon that is not a sport model, and a 2 litre diesel starts at £42.5k.

I get you must be a bit gutted, but I think as many people are as gutted that they can no longer spec a car to how they want it and have to have loads of options they don't want and pay for them.

Anyway, god luck with what you decide to do.

I fail to see why they are standard on the estate and coupe versions, but not the saloon. It just makes it even more illogical. Why would people with 4 doors not require folding seats whereas people with 5 doors would?!

Anyway, as I said earlier, this thread is simply for me to document all the st which BMW should have included, but didn't, in the hope that someone reading it in the future will take precautions and buy something other than an F30 instead.

As for the Ford/BMW argument, a 2012 Focus was just over £20k in Titanium (ie mid/upper level) spec, a 2012 BMW 320 MSport was £33k before any options, so £12k difference. When paying over 60% more than an equivalent manufacture you expect that basics (and I would certainly include folding seats as basic) would be included as standard, that is all.

[MrBen986]

Those mean people at BMW ripped me off too. My 435i is nowhere near as economical as a Focus Titanium. I'm going to complain.

[MikeM6]

Condi said:

I fail to see why they are standard on the estate and coupe versions, but not the saloon. It just makes it even more illogical. Why would people with 4 doors not require folding seats whereas people with 5 doors would?!

Anyway, as I said earlier, this thread is simply for me to document all the st which BMW should have included, but didn't, in the hope that someone reading it in the future will take precautions and buy something other than an F30 instead.

As for the Ford/BMW argument, a 2012 Focus was just over £20k in Titanium (ie mid/upper level) spec, a 2012 BMW 320 MSport was £33k before any options, so £12k difference. When paying over 60% more than an equivalent manufacture you expect that basics (and I would certainly include folding seats as basic) would be included as standard, that is all.

You can untwist your knickers now. Most saloons didn't come with folding seats as standard until quite recently, especially luxury saloons, as they were not seen as actually that helpful due to the shape of the boot, but also as they were more focussed on refinement rather than practicality. You don't have to like it, but it does not change things whether you do or not.

You are comparing a Focus, which is a hatchback, to a 3 series, which is a saloon. It does not compute.

I'd let it go now, it's been explained enough.

[Pica-Pica]

MikeM6 said:

You can untwist your knickers now. Most saloons didn't come with folding seats as standard until quite recently, especially luxury saloons, as they were not seen as actually that helpful due to the shape of the boot, but also as they were more focussed on refinement rather than practicality. You don't have to like it, but it does not change things whether you do or not.

You are comparing a Focus, which is a hatchback, to a 3 series, which is a saloon. It does not compute.

I'd let it go now, it's been explained enough.

I had an E36 saloon with just a knout out panel for ski-load-through. Next saloon was definitely going to be split folding seats sedan. So my F30 335d has them. I didn’t want an estate, but did want the load length. The 40-20-40 seats are very, very useful.

[MikeM6]

Pica-Pica said:

I had an E36 saloon with just a knout out panel for ski-load-through. Next saloon was definitely going to be split folding seats sedan. So my F30 335d has them. I didn’t want an estate, but did want the load length. The 40-20-40 seats are very, very useful.

Yep, some found them useful, hence why they caught on and are now standard. But traditionally they were not the norm

[ladderino]

OP - keep in mind that the 320d was one of the most popular company car models for years.

Many of the models floating around will represent people wanting to keep their BIK low, or people wanting the BMW badge but not being able to highly spec it due to their allowance. As a result, there's many cars floating around with very sparse specs.

I wouldn't necessarily write the brand off entirely based on your experience so far with what sounds like a car that hasn't been specced very well.

FWIW, I don't think Audi is any better at this. I previously had a SQ5, and when we were buying that I couldn't believe how much stuff didn't come as standard with a S model.

[ladderino]

Ed.Neumann said:

Remember, up until 5 years ago, BMW were still offering individual options, Merc and Audi etc had already started offering packs. BMW gave you a basic car, with some basic options added if you chose SE, Sport or M-Sport, but all the options were there to be added individually.

Mercs and Audi were already onto packs by this point. Want ambient interior lighting, no longer a £250 option, you have to spec the AMG package which gave you pano roof, xenons, Burmeister audio and ambient lighting at £2800.
Oh, and because you have the AMG pack you now can only have a black interior, same with S-Line.

BMW are now like this too, problem is, lots of options you don't want are now standard and paid for, and many more are part of very expensive packs.

Personally, I would rather a cheaper base price and individual options, keep the packs to save some money, but taking away the individual option choice was a real shame as far as I am concerned.

This is the result of WLTP, which requires mfrs to test all variants of a vehicle. As a result, options have been moved to packs to reduce the number of possible permutations.

[Ed.Neumann]

Condi said:

I fail to see why they are standard on the estate and coupe versions, but not the saloon. It just makes it even more illogical. Why would people with 4 doors not require folding seats whereas people with 5 doors would?!

Why do people buy an estate?

What do you think the main advantage of an estate car is over its saloon equivalent?

Do you think buyers of an estate car might be doing so because it offers more versatility in its load carrying ability?

What do you think that extra couple of thousand pounds the estate costs over the saloon maybe paying for? It is not just 2ft of extra roof metal.

[Ed.Neumann]

ladderino said:

This is the result of WLTP, which requires mfrs to test all variants of a vehicle. As a result, options have been moved to packs to reduce the number of possible permutations.

Yeah that makes sense.

Presumed it would be a cost saving exercise.

[Uncle boshy]

Quite an amusing thread, as someone said early on it depends where in the cars lifecycle it was when manufactured as to what came on it.

I recently got a 2011 audi tt roadster as a stop gap car. Very happy with it for what it is.

But this thread got me thinking back and I had a Vauxhall insignia as a company car new in 2011. It had satnav, dab, heated seats, adaptive lights, cruise, Bluetooth phone and audio streaming, it even had a roof.

My tt has none of those things, all were options

Not really a problem as I knew before I got it, and accepted that it was a car that was towards the end of its model life hence less tech. But I wouldn’t say that makes the insignia more premium and the Audi less.

[Condi]

ladderino said:

I wouldn't necessarily write the brand off entirely based on your experience so far with what sounds like a car that hasn't been specced very well.

Thanks for your post, this was what surprised me, I did go for what should be a decent spec'd car - M Sport, HK, Pro Nav, XDrive. To find that on top of that electric seats and folding rear seats were still extras was surprising.

And yes, I appreciate it was my fault for not understanding beforehand, but BMW seem unique in offering such a low spec base model with so many many options.

[Condi]

Quick update, the car is still lovely to drive, but still throwing up really annoying nonsense which other manufactures have sorted out.

Electrics don't switch off the reversing sensors when it detects a trailer on the back! What?! So when backing up the thing is beeping all the time. In every other modern-ish car when you have a trailer attached it deactivates the reversing sensors. BMW decided not to apply this really simple bit of logic in their software, and so you're left with a really annoying sound. Spoke to a towbar fitter about it and he agreed it was stupid, apparently there is some complicated way round it at a dealers, which takes 5 hours of coding. Ford, Audi, Merc etc all have a simple logic gate that when trailer is attached, deactivate reversing sensors.

Again, it's just something else which makes me think have they actually considered how people use it day to day.

[d_a_n1979]

Condi said:

Quick update, the car is still lovely to drive, but still throwing up really annoying nonsense which other manufactures have sorted out.

Electrics don't switch off the reversing sensors when it detects a trailer on the back! What?! So when backing up the thing is beeping all the time. In every other modern-ish car when you have a trailer attached it deactivates the reversing sensors. BMW decided not to apply this really simple bit of logic in their software, and so you're left with a really annoying sound. Spoke to a towbar fitter about it and he agreed it was stupid, apparently there is some complicated way round it at a dealers, which takes 5 hours of coding. Ford, Audi, Merc etc all have a simple logic gate that when trailer is attached, deactivate reversing sensors.

Again, it's just something else which makes me think have they actually considered how people use it day to day.

My pal has a 320D with the OEM tow hitch fitted and his sensors turn off when the trailer is connected (or whatever else he's got attached to it (bikes sometimes etc)

This is what BMW state: "The trailer module (AHM) detects a trailer as connected when at least one load is detected by hot monitoring or 2 loads by cold monitoring on the lighting system. The trailer module (AHM) then transmits the message ”Trailer connected” on the K-CAN. This message is translated by several control units in the towing vehicle. For instance, the ultrasonic sensors at the rear of the towing vehicle are deactivated via Park Distance Control (PDC). The rear fog light and reversing light are deactivated on the towing vehicle via the footwell module (FRM) or the front electronic module (FEM) and rear electronic module (REM) or the Body Domain Controller (BDC)."

Is yours OEM or aftermarket?

[Condi]

d_a_n1979 said:

Is yours OEM or aftermarket?

Interesting, what age is his do you know?

It's aftermarket but with a vehicle specific wiring kit which usually replicates the factory fit option.

EDIT - appears to be something you can edit in BimmerCode.

Edited by Condi on Friday 10th May 19:21

[d_a_n1979]

Condi said:

d_a_n1979 said:

Is yours OEM or aftermarket?

Interesting, what age is his do you know?

It's aftermarket but with a vehicle specific wiring kit which usually replicates the factory fit option.

EDIT - appears to be something you can edit in BimmerCode.

Edited by Condi on Friday 10th May 19:21

2014 F31 320d poverty spec

And yes you can code it via Bimmercode: Rear electronic module > PDC > PDC deactivation during trailer operation