[renderfarmer]

Great write up. I agree with you that Carbon Black is a misnomer. It's not actually black unless you look at a flat spot at a perpendicular angle. At any glancing angle it's dark blue. Nice choice though.

I would also add that braking is the car's weakest point, but only relative to how impressive every other feature of the car is.

One caveat to the overall excellent iDrive is it's abysmal voice control. Especially to make a phone call. Example:

Telephone>pause>Phone Book>Pause>Name of person>Pause>Numbered entry>confirmation>dialing

That's just too laborious and misses the point entirely. I recently rented a Kia Forte and I could call my wife's cell phone from my iPhone simply by saying: call + "my wife" + mobile (in one sentence!) and it did just that. If anyone knows how to make iDrive do that I'll be forever grateful.