Make sure that the wheel is turning.
The wheel is turning.
Wow, OK, it's an act of faith here.
Today, we're testing out BMW's
largest SUV ever, the X7.
I'm Matt DeBord. I get behind
the wheel of the hottest cars
and test them in real-world scenarios.
Today, I'm testing all of the tech
and driver-assistance
features in the BMW X7
to see what's actually
helpful and what's a gimmick.
This is "Real Reviews" from Cars INSIDER.
BMW has added a seven-seater
to its well-known lineup of SUVs.
The new kid on the block is a big boy.
It's an SUV version of the 7 Series Sedan,
and what that means is that it's packed
with premium features
and lots of technology
to assist in driving the
ultimate driving machine.
But before we hit the road,
let's talk about the styling
of the X7 and everything it has to offer.
The BMW X7 is, quite frankly, huge.
It weighs in at nearly 3
tons and is 17 feet long.
For the most part, it looks
like what it's supposed to be:
a mashup of the flagship 7 Series Sedan
and a very beefed-up X5 SUV,
but you can't ignore the
most obvious feature:
that absurdly massive kidney grill.
It looks like it was borrowed
from a 1920s Bentley.
Love it or hate it, I sorta love it,
there's no question that
it's large and in charge.
Inside the X7 is a den of
luxury, just like the 7 Series.
Everywhere you look, there's rich leather
and gorgeous details,
including a three-pane moonroof
that floods the cabin with natural light.
For the driver, some of the more hardcore
sport-driving aspects have been sacrificed
for outrageous comfort.
You're surrounded by glossy
black surfaces, brushed metal,
and a lot of knobs, buttons,
and shimmery screens.
It's definitely over the top,
and it should be for a $108,000 price tag.
As for that third row, well, it's cozy,
and if you have kids, they
might like it way back there.
But enough talking, let's
put the X7 to the test.
I'm gonna take the X7
on a one-hour journey
from downtown Manhattan
to Montclair, New Jersey.
Along the way, I'll test
driving semi-autonomously
with its dynamic cruise-control
and lane-keep functions,
I'll use my hands and voice
to control the infotainment system,
and I'll see if it can park
and back up on its own.
OK, so now we're out on the
highway in stop-and-go traffic,
and I was able to activate
the semi-self-driving feature
that we were using in the city.
So I've set the speed at 20.
I'm gonna take it up to 50,
and I set the following
distance pretty far,
which is the way I like it,
and what will happen now is
the adaptive cruise control
and the lane-keep assist will
keep the car in its lane.
So I'm not using any
brakes or accelerator here,
I'm gonna just see if it'll
whip me around the car
that's in front of me, which it does.
So this is this the experience I had
driving it the other
day, it's a little bit,
it can be a little bit tentative at times.
I think it's erring on
the side of caution.
This vehicle wants to be real careful
about it speeding up
when the system is on.
So that's interesting,
it should've warned me
that guy was coming over into my lane,
and I did not get a
warning from the system,
so you gotta be paying attention.
You absolutely have to
be paying attention.
But overall, I think lane keep
and dynamic cruise control
are helpful features, not gimmicks.
So there's different gestures
you can allegedly use
within different functions
on the infotainment system.
So now we're in full-on nav,
you see if I wave my hand like
that, it throws up the menu,
and if I sweep it back like that,
it's supposed to go back to,
see it's supposed to go back to being,
to being not like it with these menus,
but it doesn't always work.
So if you do this, it turns the volume up.
It's supposed to anyway.
See, and then if you do
that, it turns it back down.
It's just, it's very confusing, y'know?
There's a series of gestures
that you should be able to use,
sweeping gestures like that, OK,
that wiped it clean, but now it's back.
These gestures are a cool
idea that don't always work
as well as advertised,
so I think this is a bit
of a work in progress for BMW.
I've had this experience on every BMW
I've tested out that has this feature.
The biggest gimmick is
the gesture-control aspect
of the infotainment system.
Sounds good, never really
works the way it's supposed to,
and at times, because you're
waving your hands around,
it changes something that
you don't want to change.
All right, let's try some
voice-command features.
You push this button
on the steering wheel,
the microphone button.
Tune to 91.1FM.
BMW: I'm playing the frequency 91.1.
That was a little slower
than what I'm used to.
I use this system a lot to
tune the radio nowadays,
and it's pretty good for navigation,
but it won't do things like...
raise the temperature.
BMW: What temperature should I set?
Matt: Oh, wait, look at that!
72 degrees.
BMW: I'm setting the temperature
on the driver's side to
72 degrees Fahrenheit.
Matt: Ah, look at that, it does work!
I was skeptical about that.
I don't use it to change
the temperature very much,
but it will do it.
Increase the fan.
BMW: The fan intensity can be set
by voice only in automatic mode.
Matt: Oh, I don't know what that means.
So as you can see, there's a
couple of things you can do
with it that are quite useful.
You can somewhat manage
the climate-control system,
you can change the radio
station or the SiriusXM station,
and you can manage the navigation system.
OK, we've come to the end
of our mini road trip,
and we're going to test out
the automated-parking feature
to see if the BMW X7 can locate
and parallel park itself.
All right, it has not located the spot.
Let's try it again.
Oh, there we go, it found that spot.
It's just not doing it, see?
That's gonna crash into that car.
OK, fail.
Sorry, didn't work.
It's kind of a gimmick, what do you think?
Gimmick?
I think it's a gimmick.
OK, now that our parking assistant,
the automated-parking feature, has failed,
we're gonna give the
backup assistant a shot.
Now we're gonna see if
the car can back up.
Seventy-six feet, seems
to know what it's doing.
Does it make sure that
the wheel is turning?
The wheel is turning.
And...
It...
Wow, OK, it's an act of faith here.
That was a...
That worked.
That worked. Did you
see the wheel spinning
like crazy there though?
So there you have it, the BMW X7.
As far as driving performance goes,
it lives up to BMW's reputation.
Now, as far as the stuff
inside that we tested out,
the features, I didn't
like the gesture control
in the infotainment system,
and I think the parking-assist features
either don't work very well
or are downright scary when they do work.
So the big question is,
is it worth $108,000?
And I think the answer is: yes.
It's worth $108,000.
BMW has done a good job
with its largest-ever SUV.
