HELP ... iDrive makes me crayyyzeee! ! !

[SaintlySins]

Hello all,

BMW's have been in my family since I was a kid in the '70's and Dad motored around in a 1600 and then a 2002, then a 2002tii. I love the brand and respect all they've done over the years, but haven't had one in over 2 decades.
Just picked up a 2014 640i Grand Coupe w/M Kit. Seems like a nice sled. Plenty of power, good "enough" handling for a 4-door, and it has just about every bell and whistle one could want. Over the years I've heard every one of my friends bellyache about how bad the iDrive system was ... one going so far as to finding the 'chime' and cutting the wire to it just to shut it off. I heard the iDrive system had gotten better ... and when the BMW Genius helped me program the system, I understood most of it ... but a few things were vague and I chalked it up to my age an a learning curve.

I've had the sled now for 3 weeks. I don't understand the iDrive AT ALL!

Why can't I program the stations I want to listen to onto the presets ... like every radio preset in the world, I should tune to the frequency I want, EX: AM, FM, Sat, and the presets will go directly to the station I've programmed for that frequency. The BMW Genius says; "that's not how it works" ... and proceeds to tell me I've got to program multiple steps to make that happen ... his explanation leaves me more lost than found. Nothing about "programming" the car for ease of use so I can focus on "driving" and not on a multitude of steps if I want to change from one station on Satellite to a station on FM ... or over to Navi to click on a stored address!

And the seats don't stay programmed.
And it seems the addresses in my Cell Phone's Contact List that's synced to the car - are pushed into the fields when I'm trying to load a new address into the Navigation. Not Good!
And it seems there's a "fight" between the two keys that came with the car ... and not the one that 'unlocked' the car - (which should be the default key to the presets if both are present)
And the Navi system sometimes has pre-programmed addresses from the port where it came into the country and the dealership ... which is not the addresses we programmed in. Yet, there are times when everything is correctly displayed in the Navi for easy "click & go".

I "assume" it has something to do with what key I grab to use that car ... but the Genius Kid said that's not the case ... (I'm not believing him!)

I'm lost!

I'm looking for a "Programming Map" that explains how to remove earlier programming by the Dealership as well as helps me to fully program the car to my needs, wants and simplistic usage.

Can anyone point me to a good video or reading resource on how to program the iDrive? Thank you for letting me rant ... and thank you in advance for any guidance and help.

Regards,

Gregory

[BimmerBreaker]

I haven't dealt with that particular generation of iDrive, but on the ones I have dealt with - you simply tune your radio to the radio station you want and like most cars, hold down one of the preset buttons.

The seats should stay programmed and should tie to the key. I think there are two ways to have it programmed (dealer may need to do this for you...). The seats can go to the key's last seat setting or it goes to the first saved seating position. Have you tried "saving" the seating position with the memory seat feature? Should look something like this on the seat... hold the "M" for memory for a few seconds then press 1.

Not sure what you mean by the keys are "fighting" - as mentioned prior, certain settings tie to the key. This way, you and another individual (spouse, friend, or a really lucky kid) can have their own key and certain settings such as steering wheel position, seating position, radio presets and etc will tie to the key. We share one of our newer BMWs in our household and I love this feature. I unlock the car with my key and it moves to my seating position and last radio station. Other owner takes it out and it goes to her seating position and radio station.

Can't help on the cell phone stuff but the navigation stuff should be able to be deleted out of the system. Maybe next time you are at the dealer mention you want the nav system cleared of all the addresses you didn't put in, and go over some of the common settings they can change to tailor the car to you. I think the Genius should have done this but sounds like he didn't.

Quite a jump from a 2002 to a 640i Gran Coupe

[Butters Stoch]

Sell it and buy a bunch of E30s.

[mhunter29928]

The whole key/memory strategy has changed on the newer models. The key is not tied to the settings, but rather remembers the 'user' selected the last time it was in the vehicle. I think... Months ago I was working on a vehicle, with keys and settings, and had to get one of our Genius to explain it. I don't know how to use all the electronic gee-whiz features, I just fix them when they don't work at all. I guess I could see why having 2 keys in the vehicle might cause confusion... I can't say for sure, though.

Hate to say it because I know this is not what you want to hear, but you need to have another session with the BMW Genius. We're a small dealer and we have 3 of them. So maybe try to get a different one this time? Your complaints are exactly the reason BMW created this position.

[ptarditi]

Set the car up to your liking, take a USB stick and put it in the port in the glove box, go to settings in the idrive and export your preferences onto the usb stick. Your personal settings are now set-up on the flash drive. Take the usb stick out, if the car reverts to previous settings just put the stick back in, but you should be able to save your settings. As far as the cell phone issues, have you had the KISU software update. By the way I've followed the same path as your dad, with a 1602, 2002a, '72 tii . Not everyone embraces the new technology I think its awesome. I think idrive has come an incredible distance from the early versions, it should be come second nature, it is also up to the dealer to thoroughly explain all of its features. And the radio buttons can be individually programmed for each source, am,fm, sat, I'm not sure if it'll take Blue tooth audio as a preset, that's external soutce from the multimedia,button.

[mhunter29928]

Ah, completely forgot about the usb stick...

Also, if you have an iphone with iOS 7 you need to upgrade to iOS 8. There is a bulletin about iOS 7 and it's know problems with bluetooth connectivity.