Documenting 2009+ iDrive Problems

[brian.toth]

I've finally had the time to convert my paper-based notes on my iDrive to a simple online version: http://briantoth.com/idrive/

Feel free to contact me about additions, suggestions, corrections or any other info that you might have experienced that I haven't listed. There's some more notes that I need to document, mostly with the Navigation portion, but at least it's a start.

The service department didn't even want to to look over my original notes, but BMW provided me an address to mail them to. Maybe after I get all my thoughts organized and the website cleaned up a bit more.

[timhatimay]

This is a great idea, and very nice way to track the issues. I agree with all of your points, and had just a few comments based on my iDrive experiences:

1. The worst of my problems...The car will say it cannot calculate the directions (ie. "Unable to Calculate Route"). This is in NYC on major roads, and it shows me driving on the street correctly. Usually I have to try and 'Start Guidance' about 10-20 times on my way before it actually can find the route, even if I am following the same route that it brought me by. This has gotten me lost with no way out once in a bad area, and has just become generally frustrating. I know now to look at my route on google before actually leaving, and have my iPhone as a backup.

2. The car seems to forget my 'Random' every once in a while. if I am playing an artist or playlist random, and turn off the car, when I come back the random is gone. Sometimes this directly coincides with the issue you mention of only having one song shown on the screen.

3. Mostly my maps are very good, but occasionally it takes me to some very round-a-bout directions, when I know there is a more direct route.

4. If you don't use the arrow display or exit view, there is no distance count-down until the turn. I'm used to this now, and often put the arrow display up because of this, but can be tricky if using a map view.

5. I agree with your RDS comment completely, I have no idea what stations I am looking at!

6. I may have a later version, but the truncated songs have a '...' not 001 on my idrive.

Info: 2009 135i. Car was produced in January of 2009, and delivered on March of 2009. I don't believe an update was ever performed, but unfortunately I don't know what version software/maps I actually have.

This is a great way to display some issues, and hopefully BMW will listen.

Keep up the great work!

Tim

[BMW86]

Nice work. Sorry to take this thread OT but I have some contacts that I used to have on my iphone but I deleted them and they still appear on my idrive in my car. It seems like it's saved them into it's memory and I don't know how to delete them from the idrive. Any tips?

[brian.toth]

Originally Posted by BMW86

Nice work. Sorry to take this thread OT but I have some contacts that I used to have on my iphone but I deleted them and they still appear on my idrive in my car. It seems like it's saved them into it's memory and I don't know how to delete them from the idrive. Any tips?

I noticed that while I was doing all my tests. If you go into Contacts and then Options, there's a way to remove all contacts somewhere in there. I also found that the iDrive doesn't immediately update the info until after you turn the car off for a bit. Sometimes I had to turn my phone off and on to get it to re-sync the contacts as well.