New car

[DSL]

Still no pics.

You'all get used to the input from the iDrive wheel, you'll soon be able to dial in inputs for common stuff without even looking at the screen. And the satnav makes the D4 one in my MY11 look like something out of a toy store. You'll have the red/amber/green for traffic, something that came in in MY12. Plus its routing is far, far, far better. I now no longer use the D4 system as it is complete pants.

Re cruise control, it actually sits at the dialled in speed, rather than dropping down when it hits a hill or is first selected, and it will brake you when going down hill to maintain the speed rather than allowing gravity to speed you up. The speed limit is really useful in say 40mph limit, but can be overridden by just booting it.

You got room in the garage for a second set of wheels? Worth scouring eBay for a second set of rims and getting winters on them.

[anglefire]

Dom, it will do all that - HD is is 20Gb I think and I can send the route to the car from the phone or the computer - I think they have routes you can download from the website of interesting drives - could be interesting!

Internet connected as well - it will even tell the dealer when its coming up for a service - and tell you if the battery is getting low.

iDrive will come when I get chance to play with it - I can even put power and torque displays on the dash - all very boy racerish - oh and it has launch control

Winter wheels/tyres are a definite - just got to work out which type of tyre monitoring it has as it seems there are two options!

As for start/stop - I'm going to turn it off - what little fuel saving it will give I will forego in pursuit of a better chance of the engine lasting - the chase to ever better emissions is at the cost of engine reliability however hard the manufacturers try to mitigate it.

[DSL]

And read the manual!! I only discovered that it can read texts out loud well after I'd bought mine. Lots and lots of stuff in there that I probably never even knew about.

[anglefire]

Yeah I have found a paper copy in the car - but what I like is that you can access it online or an app and is based on your VIN so is the one for the car - and of course is available on the sat nav/media screen thing!

I think it can receive emails and read those out too. Not that I plan to do that as I have too many emails that are "alarm" emails and not real people!

[DSL]

Powered tailgate? Didn't have that but the separate opening of the glass is really useful fur just slinging the bag or shopping in th boot.

The only negative of the whole car is there is nowhere to easily carry a spare, well not without the dogs having to sit on it. I didn't mind the runflats but would have liked to have a spare one with a jack & tools, and that BM didn't bung a battery in the undersized wheel well. But it was something I got used to.

[anglefire]

Yep powered tailgate - and the glass opening is really good.

Spare wheel - yeah no where to put one - but to be fair, I've had 2 flats in 170k - both off road - having said that, these are much lower profile so I'm sure more prone to damage.

Lack of storage in the car is my "concern" - but just means can't carry the :censored:! Anyway once teh hD has some tunes loaded up it will be fine

[DSL]

You won't need to carry the , we just carry all that around coz we drive LRs and will prob need it. You've moved into reliable motoring realms, it means you can save the planet by not lugging loads of unnecessary around.

ISTR there was a fair amount of stowage in the boot area, both under the floor and side panniers.

And Jen's just sorted your summer 6 person dilemma. You take 4 peeps up in the BM, Jane takes herself and one other in the Jazz with the rear seats down and all your tonnes of holiday clobber in the back. Sorted.

[anglefire]

Problem is Jane doesn't drive long distances - her knees give her jip.

I've a few idea's

[anglefire]

And a few pictures

[anglefire]

Oh and I put the satnav on to get me home - It's everything it should be - the directions come up on the dash with pictures of the next junction, distance to go and road name. The only thing that would improve it would be heads up display - which is an option, though not on mine