These were horrid, because by design you couldn't adjust them from your normal seating position. Combine that with the fact that the adjusters typically weren't very precise, and it could take 5+ minutes to get the damn passenger mirror adjusted correctly as you leaned this way and that. Then your oblivious passenger would occasionally bump it and knock it out of alignment.

I swore 25 years ago that I would never own a car without power mirrors, I haven't, and won't.

 

Yes, agreed on all counts. Although the cable-linkages on some vehicles were worse than others, in general, they ended up not being very much of a convenience at all.

Well, yes, you probably will own one......but perhaps only by a technicality. Cameras are slowly replacing mirrors on more and more vehicles.

 

Did you have any issues with the mirrors on your E90? My pass side wasn't returning to the memory position, and it got replaced under warranty. Mine is pre-LCI (2007 E92) and I love my mirrors, they are teeny! Not like the LCI ones where they remind me of dumbo ears. Why I like them is all the M cars have gotten special treatment on mirrors, so I like mine are small.

I know a feature I would really like brought back--a full sized spare with an alloy wheel. My LS430 spare was mounted before as I found tiny pebbles in it. Likely it has been used < 100 miles. It still has yellow and blue grease crayon markings from Tahara Aishi, Sept. 2005. Also the original SP 5000 Dunlop. Tire has the red and yellow mounting dots.

 

No my mirrors have been flawless from day one. Mine is an LCI though. I think they may have jammed once or twice when completely encased in ice, but that's not the car's fault.

I'm not a spare tire person, but if I was, I wouldn't depend on a 15-year-old one. It's the same result as not having one at all, just with more work in the middle.

 

Obviously nobody you know listens to high quality music, which requires a CD input (or the hassle of transferring all your music to an external drive at CD quality bandwidth). It's the reason that high end audio systems still include CD players.

 

If you have lossless audio sources and you’re plugged in via USB, that’s no longer true.

 

Does quality music even exist anymore?

 

Very few high-end home audio systems will include CD players. A few owned by folks with a large legacy collection of CDs will include a CD Transport, feeding an external standalone DAC, to get as much as they can out of their existing collection. But 16/44 redbook audio doesn't hold a candle to modern 24/192 high-res audio. Streaming Amazon Music HD or Qobuz over LDAC to a bluetooth DAC/Amp feeding my auxiliary input beats the absolute **** out of playing a CD on the factory headunit--it's not even close from a quality perspective. And those same sources fed directly to my desktop DAC/Amp and then to balanced headphones is head and shoulders above that.

CDs are dead for a reason. They're not convenient enough for people who don't care about sound quality, and they don't sound good enough for people who do.

 

I don't know I entirely share that view (and I too have Amazon HD, Qobuz and also buy quite a lot of hi-res music because with Qobuz sublime it's cheaper to buy the hi-res than the CD-quality versions). 16/44 redbook CD-quality can provide excellent sound quality. 16/44 delivers a frequency range well beyond normal human hearing ranges and a dynamic range of 96dB. But good mastering beats bitrate. And sometimes when we hear differences, we're hearing different mastering on different versions of the same album etc.

 

Not sure if it has been posted, but I wish cars still had a slot in the dashboard for the keyfob.

 

You don't like the push-buttons?

I find that they are generally more handy and convenient, but I agree that they have some shortcomings, like noticing at a glance whether they are in START, RUN, or ACCESSORY mode. Some of them have a small green or yellow light to signal that, but it can be awkward to switch modes.

As for the old dash-slot ignition switches, in the U.S., they went out the window in 1969, first on GM cars, then with the rest of the industry in 1970., when they switched to the steering column. GM gets the credit for that...it was originally their idea, in 1969, to lock the steering column with the switch, to help prevent theft. DOT was so impressed with the idea that it very quickly made a regulation that it would go into effect the very next year for all American-market vehicles. Decades later, as technology improved, it was possible to move the ignition switch back to the dash while still locking the steering column....which some vehicles did.

 

Absolutely! Right near the dead pedal just to the left of the brake pedal. All power window cars should have an emergency window crank handle.

 

Those old floor-dimmer switches were, in most cases, all the way on the left side of the foot-well, not just to the left of the brake-pedal. In the late-70s and early-80s, they were moved to the column-stalk because most drivers found the handy stalk, right there at one's fingertips, a lot easier to find and use than groping around on the floor with one's left foot while trying to find the step-on-switch.

 

Pretty sure Och is talking about the slot in the dash that most German makes had until keyless start (meaning leave the fob in your pocket) became standard across the range. My E90 3-series has one, for example. You insert the entire keyfob (not the key) into it, then push the start button to start the car. Comfort Access (keyless start) was optional on my car, but this slot is present regardless of whether the car is so equipped. I've seen and used similar systems on Mercedes and Porsche.

Here's what the BMW version looks like:



You can see that the car currently cannot be started because the fob is not inserted.

 

^ Correct, no problem with push buttons if they also provide a keyfob slot. Gives you a place to store the key, and if you park the car in a garage, the valet knows where the key is. I have it on my E70, but not on any of my newer BMWs.

Perhaps they eliminated it for safety in case of a crash, especially if you have other keys on the ring with the keyfob?