First off, there are very few new 7-series BMWs in India. Because of the crazy-ass tax structure in this country, it costs as much to buy a new 7 (or S-class, as the case may be) here as it does to buy a Rolls Royce in your country. Therefore not too many people choose to buy these cars new. So, when we see one on our streets, it is an occasion for celebration for me and my motorhead friends.
A few moments ago, one of these friends called me up and told me, rather ecstatically, that there was a shiny blue new 7 in his parking lot, and that he was looking at it/into it from not so far away (the reason for his excitement being that until now, all new 7s were speeding past us). He could see the driver fiddling with the I-Drive system (o Joy!!!).
Now the wierd part. He told me that the car’s wing mirrors were “folded upwards” when it was parked, and that as the car drove off, they automatically “righted themselves”, i.e. folded so that they were facing the rear like they should.
I didn’t quite get this. What’s the point of having the wing mirrors fold upwards? Or were the mirrors merely folded in, and my friend just made a mistake?
According to BMW’s web site (www.bmwusa.com), on the 745i, the outside mirror on the “curb” side (the right, for a left-hand drive car) tilts down when you’re backing up, so that you can see the curb when you’re parking, then swings up to its normal position when you’re moving forward.
My 2000 540i does the same. Note that this isn’t the mirror housing, but just the mirror. It is as if you were manually adjusting the mirror to point slightly downward when you shift in reverse, and returing it to the original position when you shift into first.
The mirror housing does fold flat against the car, but that’s a completely manual operation. Although there is one car wash that always seem to do it for me…
If the question of automatic fold up mirrors isn’t answered by the end of the day, I’ll check my buddies new 745iL when he visits.
US Cars aren’t likely to have this feature, but it certainly exists on European spec cars. The reason is that streets are much narrower in EU, so people fold their side view mirrors in to take up less space and avoid having them clipped by a passing car.
Cars for years have had folding mirrors that you had to fold manually, so it makes sense that the pinnacle of technology 7 series would do it automatically.
The new 745iL does in fact have this function, as does the E39 M5. The mirrors and housings can be electronically folded in/up.
While they would ideally just fold directly in, the reason they fold up is that it is mechanically simpler – the attachment point of the mirror to the car is a U-jointed system within a cylinder. The connection of the joint and housing is a diagonal cut across a cylinder.
Thus, when an electrical motor rotates the mirror, it spins up and in, out of harms way. (For a simple home experiment, cut a sausage or cucumber at a 45 degree angle, and rotate one end around the center of the cut.)
The reason, of course, is to keep the mirrors away from passing cars, motorcyclists, and cyclists.
However, at least in the M5, the system is not automatic – it’s manually operated by pressing a button in the car.
May be that the driver was enjoying the attention, and just used his mirrors to wave goodbye?
BTW, the mirrors are the worst part of the M5. Everything else is even cooler.