Easy Ride, Tough Tech
Step into BMW’s new 745i sedan and be blown away by the elegance of the leather, brushed aluminum and cherry paneling. The plush 20-way adjustable seats, lighted door handles and one-touch trunk closure ooze luxury and practicality.
But then start the car--if you can. No one I challenged could do so without instruction.
BMW’s new flagship is so chock-full of new technology, most prominently the joystick-like iDrive control for almost all the car’s functions, that it is certain to have a strong appeal to rocket scientists. But it is likely to turn away many lesser mortals.
Make no mistake, though. As a driving machine, the big Beemer measures up to BMW’s boast that it produces the ultimate.
On a recent outing in the hilly Texas back country near San Antonio, the German auto maker’s 2002 745i, powered by a 4.4-liter, 325-horsepower V-8 engine with six-speed automatic transmission, rocketed over roads and around curves so smoothly that many of the assembled media test drivers failed to notice when speeds hit 100 mph. And an even more powerful 12-cylinder 760i is in the works.
Step into the 745i, punch the start button (once you’ve figured out how), and the engine springs to life with the familiar growl and purr of a top BMW power plant.
Acceleration is sensationally smooth, propelling the 4,376-pound sedan from zero to 80 mph with barely any effort.
Cracks and potholes seem blanketed in foam as the suspension gives only hints of them: You feel the road’s imperfections, but never jarringly.
Almost 4 inches wider than its predecessor, the 745i has a lower center of gravity, and it hugs the curves and dips in narrow roads as if it were on a rail.
Steering is precise and effortless. All the driving controls--gear shifter, pedals and steering wheel-mounted downshift button--are comfortably placed and easy to get used to.
BMW’s engineers designed a cabin that cloaks riders in vault-like silence when the windows go up. The car rides city streets and straightaways like the plush limousine the 7-Series models always have been, yet has superb cornering thanks to a stabilization system that minimizes body roll.
That’s why it is easy to hit a curve while moving too fast. Fortunately, there are enormous brakes that slow it all quickly.
It is not the car’s road manners but its looks and technology that have created controversy about the newest 7-Series car.
The design brought yelps of pain over curves and arcs where BMWs have never had them. A rear end with a tall trunk--exaggerated by a U-shaped lip--looks as if it were borrowed from an unrelated species.
BMW says humans’ average height increases a centimeter (0.4 inches) or so every 10 years. To make the 7-Series taller and provide more headroom in the rear seats to accommodate that growth, engineers had to make the car longer--a design move BMW did not want--or make the trunk taller.
“We knew we would have to make some assumptions and take some risks,” said Chris Bangle, the American who heads Munich-based BMW’s design department. “We concentrated on what would be the best users environment.”
But it’s the high-tech aspect of the car, an area on which BMW has always prided itself, that will be most polarizing to potential owners of this $70,000 Beemer.
For starters, there’s starting.
The new 7-Series is ignited by inserting a fat rectangular plastic key into the dash, then simultaneously pressing the brake pedal and pushing an ignition button.
Then there’s getting it in gear.
There are four levers arranged in, behind and around the steering wheel. The one on the upper right, in the 2 o’clock position, is the gearshift lever. (The others operate turn signals, windshield wipers and cruise control.)
Pull the shift lever toward you and push up to get into drive. Pushing down puts the car in reverse, and pushing a button on the lever puts the transmission into park. It sounds clumsy, but the gears are clearly marked on the dashboard and one soon gets used to it.
Whether and how easily parking valets will be able to drive the car probably depends on the neighborhood in which they work. Staff at the Bel-Air Country Club will get used to it far more quickly than will their counterparts at the Detroit Athletic Club.
The key fob actually is a key within a key. You hand the fob-shaped ignition key to a valet. Inside it is a more conventionally shaped metal key you can slide out and take with you to keep the trunk, glove compartment and center console locked.
Don’t ever lose that fob, though. You can’t start the car without it, and it contains a wealth of information. If you get a “check engine” light, for instance, just hand the fob to your dealer’s service representative, who can retrieve diagnostic and service history information stored on a chip within it.
BMW says 7-Series customers are early adapters who crave gadgetry. The iDrive certainly will satisfy those cravings. It makes the 745i the techiest car out there.
The iDrive controls several hundred functions, including climate system, audio entertainment, navigation and a hands-free cell phone that comes with the car and connects to a port in the center console.
The phone, based on Motorola’s Timeport, is designed to work with the car’s computers. Hook it up, and it uploads your phone numbers into the iDrive so you can twist and spin the knob to dial the desired contact. Or you can use the voice recognition feature to tell the phone whom to call.
Though the iDrive knob is easy to grasp, its operation isn’t.
New users will continually navigate between functions, make mistakes and get kicked out of the system by its computer, and wind up pounding the knob in frustration.
That said, most owners who drive the car for more than a month probably will memorize the half a dozen or so functions they use frequently, such as changing radio stations and temperatures, and won’t bother with the few hundred other things they could do through iDrive, such as clock themselves from zero to 60.
But are there all that many people out there willing to spend a month learning to use their new $70,000 car?
There’s plenty of non-iDrive technology in the 7-Series too.
By punching a button on the steering wheel, drivers can use thumb controls to downshift and lock into a gear--holding the car in third, for instance, while winding through twisty roads. Hit the button a second time and the transmission takes over again.
Those 20-way adjustable seats are something else. There’s even a function for adjusting the upper thigh support, and it tickles a bit when the front portion of the lower cushion starts sliding forward.
Other appointments are just plain cool.
When you use the remote key to unlock the doors from a distance, each door handle is discreetly lighted by a tiny bulb. If you don’t shut the doors hard enough and they’re still open a crack, the system senses this and automatically closes them completely.
Some complaints: When I parked close to a curb, the obstacle sensor kept beeping, even though I wanted to keep the engine idling while parked in that position. When I was in the passenger seat, my knee kept hitting the six-disc CD changer’s eject button, dislodging the cartridge into my lap.
Then there’s the parking brake. A no-brainer in most cars, it is operated by pressing a conveniently located button on the 7-Series’ dash, but that operation requires four pages of explanation in the owner’s manual, half of them detailing how to disengage it if the battery dies. The process involves a screwdriver and a wrench.
All in all, this is a fabulous road car with terrific handling and performance. But if your grasp of modern technology stops short of programming your VCR, then you’ll probably want to steer clear.
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Terril Yue Jones covers the auto industry from Detroit. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.
