[am36]

Thanks Philtrick123! I have been told (by the Business Mgr) that it works exactly like a mortgage - i.e. that the interest is calculated daily and obviously depends on the outstanding balance. I had a second conversation with this chap and I was left a little confused - as he stated that i would have to pay off the GFV / balloon payment 'first'. This is where the alarm bell started to ring!

However - i'm definitely erring on the side of a personal loan. At least i'll know where i stand from day one.

Cheers

PS tried to quote your message in reply but can't for some reason (probably a PICNIC moment - Problem in chair not in computer!)

[sfax]

Mine was part financed by BMW and I called for an early settlement quote and there was no early repayment fee. Same is true for making a lump sum payment; they just recalculate the remaining monthly payments and give you a new monthly figure post lump sum. There are arrangement and settlement fees but the APR has to include these by law.

[am36]

Originally Posted by sfax

Mine was part financed by BMW and I called for an early settlement quote and there was no early repayment fee. Same is true for making a lump sum payment; they just recalculate the remaining monthly payments and give you a new monthly figure post lump sum. There are arrangement and settlement fees but the APR has to include these by law.

Cheers sfax. I'll probably try and nail this once and for all by contacting BMW finance - I just need to be sure in my own mind what the T's & C's are with regard to this issue and how i intend to repay.

[buze]

Ordered today! We were told it would arrive in february, and if course we will wait until the new number plates before taking delivery.

Took a 2.0d manual with quite a few options, and got a bit mire that 7.5% discount. We did take the finance, after a lot of hesitating as we are more cash buyers than anything. Ultimately, we did take it because 1) it's reasonably easy to walk out of 2) it's pretty cheap considering the money we don't have to pay up front is kept in our offset mortgage and 3) the criteria that the finance company can 'lean' on the dealer/manufacturer in case of recurrent issue is pretty good. There's nothing worse that being ingored for a recurrent manufacturer problem ( I hope there isn't!!) after paying premium money.

So, now going to have to be patient for ~ 3 months :-)
/me starts biting nails!

[bellboy]

Originally Posted by buze

Ordered today! We were told it would arrive in february, and if course we will wait until the new number plates before taking delivery.

Took a 2.0d manual with quite a few options, and got a bit mire that 7.5% discount. We did take the finance, after a lot of hesitating as we are more cash buyers than anything. Ultimately, we did take it because 1) it's reasonably easy to walk out of 2) it's pretty cheap considering the money we don't have to pay up front is kept in our offset mortgage and 3) the criteria that the finance company can 'lean' on the dealer/manufacturer in case of recurrent issue is pretty good. There's nothing worse that being ingored for a recurrent manufacturer problem ( I hope there isn't!!) after paying premium money.

So, now going to have to be patient for ~ 3 months :-)
/me starts biting nails!

Congratulations

We ordered ours 1 month ago, and we're also expecting delivery medio February (production is set to start over January). Takes a while to get this goodies to Norway it seems

[sfax]

Are people ordering now being warned about the upcoming changes to iDrive (production from April 2013)? Could be worth delaying your order for if you're not desperate for delivery before May. As a techie, I would definitely wait a couple of months to get this as it is much better than the current offering

http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=716908

[buze]

Originally Posted by sfax

Are people ordering now being warned about the upcoming changes to iDrive (production from April 2013)? Could be worth delaying your order for if you're not desperate for delivery before May. As a techie, I would definitely wait a couple of months to get this as it is much better than the current offering

http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=716908

Nope, didn't hear a thing. My model was forward dated or whatever to get the DAB radio (which I don't care for anyway) -- I wonder if /that/ has at least part fo the new hardware installed...

[sfax]

Originally Posted by buze

Nope, didn't hear a thing. My model was forward dated or whatever to get the DAB radio (which I don't care for anyway) -- I wonder if /that/ has at least part fo the new hardware installed...

Start of production date is usually about 6 weeks before delivery date so I would assume any cars due to be delivered before mid May won't have the updated iDrive.

If you insisted, you could probably get the dealer to delay the allocation until they start producing the new iDrive but that would mean that they would have to do some work which they are not generally keen on.

If it was me and it was only 2-3 months, I would wait as a retrofit would be massively expensive, and may not even be possible

[rcipriano]

Originally Posted by sfax

Are people ordering now being warned about the upcoming changes to iDrive (production from April 2013)? Could be worth delaying your order for if you're not desperate for delivery before May. As a techie, I would definitely wait a couple of months to get this as it is much better than the current offering

http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=716908

This is a good question indeed ... I am waiting my F25 to be delivered in March 2013 to get the register 13. I asked my dealer about the new iDrive , in special for the Touch feature and he said that is only available in China at the moment and that he is no sure even if this feature will become available in Europe. He said also that BMW UK and Europe have not communicated any information regarding this feature yet.
Moreover I did some search in Google and youtube and I could not seen a single info/video about this feature beside the ones made by BMW (even a Chinese video)...
This was the reason why I did not stop my order,even if it will be great to have the hardware upgraded
Is there anybody who knows if the mentioned upgrade is in place in the others models with earlier schedule?
Cheers!
note: sorry for my English..

[sfax]

Originally Posted by rcipriano

This is a good question indeed ... I am waiting my F25 to be delivered in March 2013 to get the register 13. I asked my dealer about the new iDrive , in special for the Touch feature and he said that is only available in China at the moment and that he is no sure even if this feature will become available in Europe. He said also that BMW UK and Europe have not communicated any information regarding this feature yet.
Moreover I did some search in Google and youtube and I could not seen a single info/video about this feature beside the ones made by BMW (even a Chinese video)...
This was the reason why I did not stop my order,even if it will be great to have the hardware upgrade
Is there anybody who knows if the mentioned upgrade is in place in the others models with earlier schedule?
Cheers!
note: sorry for my English..

Interestingly no-one has added to that thread with anything official for months and the new 3 and 5 series in production should already have this updated iDrive, but the BMW website still lists the old model (609) for the new 3 series touring so I assume that there is a delay.

I bumped the thread again but there has been no response on it for a while so I assume it's a delay of an unknown length

[Yeltzer]

Originally Posted by sfax

Interestingly no-one has added to that thread with anything official for months and the new 3 and 5 series in production should already have this updated iDrive, but the BMW website still lists the old model (609) for the new 3 series touring so I assume that there is a delay.

I bumped the thread again but there has been no response on it for a while so I assume it's a delay of an unknown length

I know someone who took delivery of a new 3er touring just 2 weeks ago and his has definitely got the new idrive

[sfax]

Cheers Yeltzer. So we can conclude that dealers are still totally clueless and unreliable and the BMW website is still inaccurate and out of date.

This may also mean that April 2013 production is still on for X3s with the new iDrive

[rcipriano]

Originally Posted by sfax

Cheers Yeltzer. So we can conclude that dealers are still totally clueless and unreliable and the BMW website is still inaccurate and out of date.

This may also mean that April 2013 production is still on for X3s with the new iDrive

Sorry no offence, but I won't be so sure.

If you read all these post about the new iDrive, sometime i think that the "new" iDrive is the "old" iDrive..so they are talking about the 609 (which is capable for 3D mapping, real traffic information, faster than the previous one and so on)

In fact, the main new features that the "new" will have that are not in the current 609 is touch capability and LTE support and again I have not read in any single post where these features are showed..

By the way, I asked my dealer for further clarification and he wrote me the following:

The navigation system has had a Major update this year, BMW have not mentioned anything about software or hardware updates at this point. From my experience I do think they would update this year with a major overhaul next year.

If I do here anything I will keep you posted, but as I said we have not heard anything from BMW regarding the updates

Important point is that in "this year" we are in December so I guess he got confused and he is expecting a update in 2013 and a major overhaul in 2014??

Cheers!

[sfax]

Originally Posted by rcipriano

Sorry no offence, but I won't be so sure.

If you read all these post about the new iDrive, sometime i think that the "new" iDrive is the "old" iDrive..so they are talking about the 609 (which is capable for 3D mapping, real traffic information, faster than the previous one and so on)

In fact, the main new features that the "new" will have that are not in the current 609 is touch capability and LTE support and again I have not read in any single post where these features are showed..

By the way, I asked my dealer for further clarification and he wrote me the following:

The navigation system has had a Major update this year, BMW have not mentioned anything about software or hardware updates at this point. From my experience I do think they would update this year with a major overhaul next year.

If I do here anything I will keep you posted, but as I said we have not heard anything from BMW regarding the updates

Important point is that in "this year" we are in December so I guess he got confused and he is expecting a update in 2013 and a major overhaul in 2014??

Cheers!

None taken I guess Yeltzer can clarify what he meant by "new" on the 3er he was referring to. I mean "new" as in the link above and specifically hardware changes like

Intel processor 1.3Ghz vs Renesas 600Mhz
1GB RAM (vs 512Mb)
8GB flash (vs 512Mb)
Nvidia graphics (vs Fujitsu)
200GB hard drive (vs 80Gb)

It looks different to the existing iDrive that you still get in a new X3 - which isn't really new anymore at over 2 years old - see attached for more details

Not sure on touch screen as that was mentioned originally and then not again as you said.

[philtrick123]

Originally Posted by sfax

None taken I guess Yeltzer can clarify what he meant by "new" on the 3er he was referring to. I mean "new" as in the link above and specifically hardware changes like

Intel processor 1.3Ghz vs Renesas 600Mhz
1GB RAM (vs 512Mb)
8GB flash (vs 512Mb)
Nvidia graphics (vs Fujitsu)
200GB hard drive (vs 80Gb)

It looks different to the existing iDrive that you still get in a new X3 - which isn't really new anymore at over 2 years old - see attached for more details

Not sure on touch screen as that was mentioned originally and then not again as you said.

Interesting to see that it mentions quicker updates via 3G.... at last!

[rcipriano]

Originally Posted by sfax

None taken I guess Yeltzer can clarify what he meant by "new" on the 3er he was referring to. I mean "new" as in the link above and specifically hardware changes like

Intel processor 1.3Ghz vs Renesas 600Mhz
1GB RAM (vs 512Mb)
8GB flash (vs 512Mb)
Nvidia graphics (vs Fujitsu)
200GB hard drive (vs 80Gb)

It looks different to the existing iDrive that you still get in a new X3 - which isn't really new anymore at over 2 years old - see attached for more details

Not sure on touch screen as that was mentioned originally and then not again as you said.

Thanks sfax for the attachment!

It has been very useful to understand better about this new iDrive model

Important point in the last slide is when is mentioned that the new iDrive will retain the same code (609)

Also as you defined above it will be the hardware features the ones that will define the "new" iDrive...

Cheers!

[sfax]

Originally Posted by philtrick123

Interesting to see that it mentions quicker updates via 3G.... at last!

Worth delaying your order for this alone! Just as 4G is rolled out

[sfax]

Originally Posted by rcipriano

Thanks sfax for the attachment!

It has been very useful to understand better about this new iDrive model

Important point in the last slide is when is mentioned that the new iDrive will retain the same code (609)

Also as you defined above it will be the hardware features the ones that will define the "new" iDrive...

Cheers!

Yeah, they retain the same code despite significant hardware and software changes just to confuse everyone (including the dealerships); and they don't bother updating the descriptions on the website for models that already have these changes - e.g. 3 series pro nav still says 12GB for music when it's 20.5GB now

[buze]

I don't really understand that idrive need anyway. I have an android phone, it has the google map, and live traffic and it's /fantastic/ -- gets updated for free, and I can set it up from outside the car and plonk it on the dashboard.

Oh, and the CPU is considerably beefier than an item atom 1.3ghz and well.

So really I need to onboard computer to be good at that, not be a bad, overpriced satnav, a bad radio, a bad multimedia thingy etc...

Just my opinion tho -- but, a Nexus 7 tablet at 150 quid will runs /miles/ around anything onboard, and I don't have to delay my order for 4 months to get 2009 tech ;-)

[sfax]

buze: It's only really a serious consideration if you are ordering pro nav. I won't open up the whole debate about having a phone stuck to the dash over an integrated system with directions appearing in the dash, on HUD etc. I used to feel the same way as you but I wouldn't be without pro nav now. And unlike most options, you do get some of the cost back on resale

[amcintosh]

Dealer has confirmed that my X3 20d M Sport has arrived in Aberdeen and I can pick it up on Saturday morning.

Just over 3 months from order to delivery.

My first new BMW, anything I need to look out for or ask about at collection?

[buze]

Originally Posted by amcintosh

Dealer has confirmed that my X3 20d M Sport has arrived in Aberdeen and I can pick it up on Saturday morning.

Just over 3 months from order to delivery.

My first new BMW, anything I need to look out for or ask about at collection?

Lucky you! It's been less than a week from order for me, and I already ran out of nails to bite
That'll also be my first BMW, so I'll be in the same boat, eventually.