Quote:
Originally Posted by Gene Horr
That's somewhat of good point but is missing a few issues. I would love to be able to set it and forget it. Unfortunately one thing BMW is pretty bad at (at least with the vehicles I've owned) is their automatic setting in warmer climes. It's not too bad in winter when temperatures rarely get into the 90's but when it hits triple digits in the spring it never goes to the max settings and takes it time getting to the higher settings. And its not a northern Europe thing because MB and Saab didn't have this design defect in my experience.
But even if you aren't having to fiddle with it all of the time, it is a bad design. Think of it as those really bad application developers that make a UI where the user is constantly having to switch between KB and mouse. It's just plain bad design.
Any time you force the driver to divert attention from the road is not only annoying but dangerous. You want to minimize that time. This means buttons that are easy to reach and can be detected by feel without having to look down. A touch screen that you need to lean over to reach and have to look at to find the correct spot is the exact opposite of good design.
As others have mentioned a secondary issue is that this is done to be cheap. Every time you add another item to be snapped into place with wires connected adds cost. Not at lot, but there is a cost. In this case what we have the manufacturer doing something to that is annoying and arguably unsafe to save a couple of dollars.
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There is, in fact, no truly "automatic" setting for the HVAC in a BMW (or at least the X5). In automatic mode, you should simply be able to set the temperature and the system takes care of adjusting the temperature and volume of air coming out of the vents, and which vents are activated. I have several cars that operate just this way; if you adjust the volume of air coming from a vent manually, it takes the hint, returns control to you, and switches off "automatic" mode. On the BMW, you can still fiddle with the vent temp, and the vent volume, which begs the question: in what sense is it automatic?
The poster to whom you responded is a troll. Every post contains his opinion (fine) and personal attacks on those who disagree with him (not so much). He has concluded, on the basis of no evidence at all so far as I can tell, that those who take a dimmer view of some LCI features are poverty-stricken.
I am delighted that some here are thrilled with their LCIs. I am disappointed that some have purchased the vehicle and are not. In a perfect world, everyone would make their own decisions, based on what they value. The LCI's increase in HP was the very reason some people bought the car; I could not be less interested in it. Doesn't mean either of us is wrong. Just different priorities