BMW, I separate with you

I want to be clear from the start. I was not enthusiastic about the car. The history of my Volvo leadership has a manual with an opening in the floor boards and a series of practical vehicles strongly, including the VW Golf and Mazda Suv game in which my family was transported 12 years ago. Then it rented a BMW i4 electric car.

What attracted me to i4? Unlike other electric cars, BMWS does not look something from Jetsons; I like that they reduced the cars that coincide with electricity. I liked it was much less common than other EVS in North California. In addition, i4 comes in something like ten colors, including “Brooklyn Gray”, which – I know I look ridiculous – made me happy in ways that Tesla’s bone could never be able to options. I read on the Internet that the first adopters were facing software problems, but with the visions of the new elegant BMW dance in my head, I provided this information comfortably. The first few drives felt joyful as well. The car was beautiful, the flight was smooth, and I felt that we were going to places.

After nearly two years, I do something I did not think I would do: waiting for the end of the lease, impatiently for a luxury car because its program is a disaster so that Volvo rust is like reliability.

A love story disappeared

Let me calculate the methods where this relationship occurred, starting with the basic job: entering my own car. On multiple occasions, I stood in parking lots, unable to open its doors with my phone even though the BMW digital key is specially designed for this. This seems trivial until you wander in the melting grocery stores while it looks like you are trying to steal your own car.

The main digital problems have become so widespread that the owners of BMW participated sometimes complex Multiple steps This is what reads like instructions to disarm a bomb: “1. Open the BMW app on your phone and use it to unlock the door.

User profile system is another exercise in feasibility. I could not create guest profiles without reducing its rank down the user’s hierarchy. What this means in practice is that if any other person drives my car – even once – the car will take over their phones and the operating menu at the moment when it is within the Bluetooth range. BMW has excessive engineering system engineering to the point in which it requires explicit connection steps that must be spoken automatically.

Car carplay integration ranges from the poor to actively dangerous. Software updates routinely, breaking CarPlay functions, which require full restarting for IDrive information and entertainment system. The inverse camera problem is especially madness. Put the car in the opposite direction while using carplay, and when you return to driving, you are thrown on the home screen instead of returning to your directions.

The backup camera itself is practically useless in low light conditions, and the screen often becomes hot incendiary.

Then there The issue of lights. Unless I remember the car lock manually after getting away from it, I will sometimes notice that the outer lights are still burning in my path. I thought it might be a human error the first time it happened. By the third time, I realized that it is a “advantage” as I4 enters into a “false sleep mode” that maintains the lights and other systems that work indefinitely. Many owners report the same problem: stop the car, walk away, and come back later to find their car light like a beacon and drain the battery.

Besides feeling almost daily that the car has memory loss, there are legitimate safety concerns. 2022 i4 underwent six summonses in its first year, including so much that BMW told their owners that their cars were a fire risk when they were stopped and advised them to “stop driving this car immediately.” since then, Other summons The battery control units that could cause sudden power loss included.

BMW releases software updates for I4 almost every few months, but the process is fraught with problems. The updates are routinely broken by services, which leads to the loss of owners access to traffic information, weather data, parking functions from remote and even the MyBMW application.

The system of modernization through the air itself is not reliable, as the owners are about the updates that stumble in many percentage of the percentage for several days, forcing the flights to the merchants for manual installation.

What is in particular is that BMW puts these compounds as distinct products. If you buy instead of leasing, the i4 begins with more than $ 50,000, with well -equipped models that pay $ 70,000 or more. Meanwhile, the owners of the lower -cost vehicles, including Hyundais and Lexus models, report anti -bullet contact and smooth user experience.

I do not say that the company rushed these cars to market without testing its digital ecosystem enough, then decided to deal with its customers as two experimental laboratories without taking their well -being, but I also no I don’t say that.

I really wanted to do this relationship. I4 is great, beautifully pushed, and represents everything I thought I wanted in an electric car. But I cannot continue a relationship as it requires the most important jobs – opening doors, delivering my phone, and getting trends – the patience of the saint. (I do not have the patience of the saint.)

Even my smart technology husband, who is usually the first to suggest the user’s mistake, recently appeared from the car after the collapse of very frustrating programs and announced that he “will need to meditate a little.”

Car ownership should not be a continuous source of exacerbation. I should not keep a mental database of solutions to the features that should only work. He should not be afraid of software updates because it may break something (mostly).

So BMW, I have received it. She made a great car, then sabotaged it with a very comedy program. I thought we were walking in the sunset together. Instead, I drive the i4 to the agency with the end of the lease. I am surprised to say that I cannot wait.