>> BMW's 7 Series recently emerged from the long winter of ugly with a nasty bangle butt the company could never really explain away. But starting with '09, things got tasty again with under-hood and in-dash tech to match. Let's drive the 2010 750i xDrive and check the tech.
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>> Our 750 was delivered in classic titanium silver with two-tone leather that actually didn't look gaudy. That's a neat trick. And the car seems smaller in person than it really is and as roomy inside as you hope it'll be. There's also an li model for a handful of additional inches in the wheelbase. Our car was an xDrive with all wheel drive.
>> Now of course, this is a 7 Series. So it's got basically everything that every other BMW can offer and, in many cases, more. But it's not an M car. So you won't see any M buttons or fiddly stuff here. However, that is still the best screen in the business, the size, the aspect ratio, the resolution. As you can see I've got live traffic. IDrive has been dramatically improved over the last couple of years, and things are easy to get to. Now you may have noticed everything's moving along at a pretty good clip here as I navigate, and that's because it's hard-drive based. And because it's hard-drive based, that means some of that's left for you. I think it's 12 GB for you to put music on. Single optical disc here in the car is standard. We have the premium audio system which adds that six-disc CD and DVD drive there above the glove box. Therefore, you can watch movies on the front screen when you're parked. It doesn't work while you're driving. External devices, of course, refers to this USB jack right here, or I can connect my iPhone or iPod with a special cable that goes to both aux and USB. I'm not crazy about those hybrid cables, but they're used on some vehicles, and this BMW is one of 'em. And because we have premium sound, which brings us a lot of these extra peripherals, we've got a little more flexibility on the tone, but it's not that advanced. There's no Dolby or DTS or true surround on this guy. But you do have a full multi-band equalizer. Power goes out through this guy right here, this stylized BMW shifter that is a one-choice only gearbox in this guy, a six-speed automatic. You do have a manual and sport mode over here on the left side of the gate, or just leave it in drive 'cuz it's a great gearbox. One thing this gear shift won't do unless you pay for an ala carte option is pull up a rearview camera when you're in reverse. That's an 80-something thousand dollar car and a rearview camera is not stock. You do have park sensors front and rear. They give you these color shadings to show things near you but no camera.
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>> Now for those of you poor slobs who still adjust your seat by pulling up a lever, let me show you where things are today, 20-way adjustable seat standard, both sides of this guy. This is like a Craftmatic automatic adjustable bed.
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>> I don't even know what some of these do. Now since those settings are far more than you'll ever nail two times the same way, you can store them on the key. Everyone in the family who's got a key to the car will have their own settings on it. Also, you can load them to a USB drive and then import those into the car which then get echoed to the key.
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>> Now on to the front end, we've got the 4.4 Liter twin turbo V8, which is gonna give you 400 horsepower, 450 foot pounds of torque. That last number is the really cool one. Zero to 60 on this big guy is about 5 seconds, 4,900 pounds worth, not bad. What is bad is the mpg, 14, 20. That's the optimistic EPA set. You're gonna get hit with a gas guzzler tax of 1,300 when you buy one new.
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>> the power is absolutely ready whether I'm in comfort mode or sport plus or anywhere in between, it's never a slug lagging in top gear trying to eek out that last mile per gallon. Yeah, no kidding. That's why the mpg is so bad. It's a big car, but it moves like what a 3 Series should move like, with a heavy ride but light handling. That's a magical combination, especially appropriate to a large car that's got some gravitas which a 7 Series is supposed to have. All the suspension modes are good. They range from significantly firmer to quite a bit more comfortable, but none of them are extreme, and the car just feels smaller than its real footprint on a nice, twisty road like this even when the lanes are narrow, sight lines are a little dicey, and I'm trying to press it. We had BMWs excellent head-up display on our vehicle, which can display speed, nav directions and other messages and always does so with great clarity and brightness. Okay, let's price this big, Bavarian banker's delight. An xDrive 750i, thinking that's the short wheelbase but all wheel drive is gonna run you about eighty seven, one base. That includes that gas guzzler tax of 1,300. Then to go CNET style, you gotta add premium sound. That gets you iPod, USB, better audio, and the six-disc changer just above the glove box, 2,000 for that, 1,300 for a driver assistance package. That gets you blind spot detection, lane departure warning, and automatic headlights and high beams. Now the ala carte goodies like head-up display for 1,300, SIRIUS is 350 ala carte. And then they tell you it's 400 bucks for the rearview camera, and that's when you walk out of the dealer's showroom, at least I would. Not a cheap way to get around, but let me tell you, for a big boy, a delight to drive.
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