Last week I traded in my 2007 BMW X3 for a 2017 BMW X3. The new car had only 6900 miles on it and it is loaded.
I never thought I would drive a car smarter than I am but I am. I’m slowly learning all of the features of the car and doing customization. Unfortunately, the instructions in the user’s manual don’t always work. It doesn’t surprise me. One of the most successful classes I ever wrote and delivered back in the 90’s when I worked for IBM, HCD and Dynamic I/O (And it is still being taught today) was for an application written by the Germans. The user’s guide sucked big time. I was able to teach myself how to use the application and after writing the course, spent three years traveling all over the country teaching it. The first two years I hit Medallion level on Delta Airlines by June. Back then, that meant sumpin’ and I was able to get a lot of 1st Class upgrades. I also maintained all of the hardware systems for all of the mainframe and I/O labs at the Education Center here in Atlanta. This was the start of me working two full time jobs.
Unfortunately, I’m not as smart as I was back then. For example, I’m trying to connect my phone to the car. My phone has bluetooth so it should work. Nope. My phone recognizes my car. I get a “pairing successful” message on my phone. But the car doesn’t recognize my phone. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a smart phone and my BMW is too snooty to mess with the phone that I have.
My entertainment system allows me to store CDs like my home entertainment system. The user’s guide sez there’s a way to display how much storage is available. Unfortunately, the procedure in the user’s guide to find this out doesn’t work.
On the plus side, BMW is gonna give me a one hour genius course on all of this stuff. I just need to call my salescritter and set it up. Meanwhile, I’m fumbling through the user’s guide so I’ll have a lot of questions when I take it. That was the salescritter’s advice and turns out it was good advice.
So what else does this car have? It has a navigation system with real time info and like most of the neat stuff in the car, it’s voice activated. I can speak my destination address rather than entering it in manually.
It has a backup camera. It has blind-spot warning on the mirrors, altho’ if the side view mirrors are adjusted properly you don’t have a blind-spot. I was shown how to do that by the salescritter and by golly he was right. All these years I have had the left side mirror adjusted improperly.
I love the power tail gate. I’ve lusted after that for years.
It has keyless ignition and door locks. I can keep the key fob in my pocket. And the doors unlock at my touch and the ignition starts at the push of a button. I’m loving the fact that I don’t have to fumble with a key when I have bags of groceries on my lap.
Another neat feature: Heads Up Display (HUD). I don’t have to look at the speedometer. The speed is displayed in front of me. When the navigation system is operative, the turns are displayed in the HUD. There are radio controls on the steering wheel and radio stations are displayed in the HUD when tuning. Kewl!
It has a lot of other neat stuff. Like I said, it’s loaded. I’ll post pictures later when I have some. Also I’ll keep y’all updated on how my learning is going. I’m using my portable hand controls and hopefully I’ll get permanent ones installed in a few weeks.