First Drive Review
A somewhat less honorable way to stand out is to purposely hold back at first and then impressively show huge improvement. Has BMW done just that with its 7-series?
Even though the new, fifth-generation 7-series follows suit as the technology pacesetter by adding a bunch of high-tech features including active suspension damping, rear-wheel steering, night vision with pedestrian detection, lane-change warning, and side-view cameras, the biggest news is BMW’s backpedaling from some of the previous 7’s, uh, “breakthroughs.” Last time around, BMW rethought the whole business of ergonomics and moved the shifter from the center console to a somewhat confusing lever on the column. It has now been moved back. The seat controls on the previous 7 were moved to the center console and operated in a way that made them about 10 times more difficult to use. For ’09 they’re back on the outboard side of the seat and operate conventionally, as on every other BMW.
Easier-to-Use iDrive
Furthermore, the 7-series’ most controversial piece of technology, iDrive, with its multifunctional central control knob that has been copied to varying degrees by Mercedes, Audi, and Honda, has been completely revamped and rethought. In fact, continuing to call it iDrive is almost an insult to the new system’s vastly improved menu structure and control strategy. There’s no more convoluted nudging of the iDrive knob in one of eight directions to choose a submenu; now you simply scroll through a straightforward list and click the knob to select it. Nudging the knob to the left always takes you back one menu. Also, there are a number of shortcut buttons around the knob’s periphery to ease the learning process, and the climate controls have been removed from iDrive’s clutches altogether and are now more easily operated by buttons and knobs on the dash.
Has all of our complaining finally paid off? We’re cautiously optimistic that BMW understands that complexity does not necessarily equate with sophistication.
Serious Chassis Complexity
But that’s not to say the latest 7-series isn’t complex. In what must be a tuning nightmare for chassis engineers, the new car features standard active dampers that vary compression and rebound characteristics independently in an attempt to maximize handling without sacrificing ride, in addition to the active front and rear anti-roll bars that are a part of the Sport package. Also new is rear-wheel steering, which is bundled with the optional active steering that varies the steering ratio. The new car features an unequal-length control-arm front suspension—a first for a BMW sedan—as well as a redesigned multilink rear.
