Home Donate New Search Gallery Reviews How-To Books Links Workshops About Contact

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible

523 hp 4.4L BiTurbo V8, All-Wheel X‑Drive, 3.4s 0-60, 11.8s @ 119 MPH, Hands-Free Self-Driving. An Owner's Review (2019~2026)

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

Join the BMW Car Club of America (tell them I sent you). Even if you don't love the magazines and club social and driving events, often dealers offer discounts on parts and service which more than pay for the membership. Better, BMW USA often offers rebates to club members when buying new or CPO cars; I got a $500 rebate last year when I bought a basic 2024 BMW 330i at my local dealer.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 9:54 AM, 31 May 2025. Nikon Z5 II, Viltrox AF 135mm f/1.8 at f/2.8 at ¹/₅₀₀ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 11.9), Radiant Photo software. bigger, taller or full-resolution.

Get the M850i at eBay (How to Win at eBay) and find accessories at Amazon, like floating wheel center caps, 0W-30 synthetic oil and 245/35R20 front and 275/30R20 rear tires.

This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use those or any of these links to approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.

Movin' out

Ready to Head Out on the Highway in the Cockpit of My BMW M850i Convertible with My Favorite Tidal Playlists, 7:30:58 AM, Monday, 28 August 2023. Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max 0.5× (2.2mm actual or 13mm eq.) camera at f/2.2 at ¹/₈₅₅ at Auto ISO 50 (LV 13.0), CarPlay screen composited from a screen grab at 7:50 AM, Thursday, 24 August 2023. enlarge enough to see my favorite playlists.

March 2026   BMW Reviews   Car Reviews   All Reviews

Funny German Automotive Words

Compared to Other Fun Convertibles

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 9:28 AM, Saturday, 04 January 2025. Shot with Canon EOS R5 II and RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM Z at 142mm at f/4.5 at ¹/₄₀₀ at Auto ISO 100, -0.3 stops exposure compensation (LV 13.0), Radiant Photo software. bigger or full 45MP resolution 9 MB JPG.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 7:36 PM, Saturday, 27 July 2024. iPhone 15 Pro Max. bigger.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 8:35 PM, Wednesday, 23 August 2023. Shot with Canon EOS R8 and Canon EF 100-400mm L II IS USM on EF to RF ring adapter at 400mm at f/8 at ¹/₆₄₀ at ISO 200 (LV 14.4), Perfectly Clear (now called Radiant Image). high-resolution.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 5:05 PM, Thursday, 18 May 2023. Shot with OM SYSTEM OM-1 and OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko ED 90mm f/3.5 IS (180mm equivalent) at f/5.6 hand-held at ¹/₁₆₀ at Auto ISO 200, +0.3 stops exposure compensation (LV 11.3), Perfectly Clear (now called Radiant Image). bigger or high-resolution.

BMW M850i xDrive Convertible, 6:55 PM, Thursday, 13 June 2024. Nikon Z8, AstrHori AF 85mm f/1.8 at f/5.6 hand-held at ¹/₃₀ at Auto ISO 80, +0.7 stops exposure compensation (LV 10.2), Radiant Photo software. bigger or 45 MP full resolution 7 MB JPG file.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible Interior in Rich Corinthian Cognac Merino Leather, 11:45 AM, Friday, 05 July 2024. Shot with Canon 5DS/R at its STANDARD Picture Control to show the natual leather color (no added saturation as most of the other photos) with Canon 580EX II flash on-camera for fill and EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM at 21mm at f/16 handheld at ¹/₁₀ of a second at Auto ISO 100 (LV 11.4), Radiant Image software to bring up some shadows. bigger.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible Interior in Rich Corinthian Cognac Merino Leather, Del Mar, California, 3:39 PM, Saturday, 26 July 2025. iPhone 16 Pro Max 1× (6.8mm actual or 24mm eq.) camera at f/1.8 at ¹/₃₂₁ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 10.0), Skylum Luminar Neo software to erase the other car and pump here at the gas station 😁. bigger.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible Interior in Rich Corinthian Cognac Merino Leather, 1:54 PM, Friday, 19 May 2023. Shot with OM SYSTEM OM-1 with somewhat heightened saturation and M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-40mm F2.8 PRO Ⅱ at 12mm (24mm equivalent) at f/6.3 at ¹/₁₆₀ at Auto ISO 200 (LV 11.6), Perfectly Clear (now called Radiant Image). bigger.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible Interior in Rich Corinthian Cognac Merino Leather, 10:54 AM, Friday, 26 May 2023. Shot with Canon EOS R50 with +4 Saturation, Canon RF 18-45mm IS STM at 18mm at f/8 at ¹/₂₅ hand held at Auto ISO 100 (LV 10.6), exactly as shot. bigger or camera-original 24 MP © JPG file (about 5 MB).

I have the saturation cranked up so it also exaggerates the orange.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible 4.4l V8 Engine, 10:49 AM, Friday, 26 May 2023. Shot with Canon EOS R50, Canon RF 18-45mm IS STM at 18mm at f/7.1 at ¹/₂₅ hand-held at Auto ISO 100 (LV 10¼), Perfectly Clear. bigger or camera-original 24 MP © JPG file (about 5 MB).

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 6:54 PM, Monday, 13 May 2024. Shot with Canon EOS R6 Mk II, Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM at 300mm wide-open at f/2.8 hand-held at ¹/₁₆₀ at Auto ISO 100, +1 stop exposure compensation (LV 10.4), Radiant Photo software. bigger or full-resolution 24 MP, 4.2 MB JPG file.

V8 Hot Rods Including a BMW M850i Convertible, Lakeside Cars & Coffee, 8:57 AM, Sunday, 05 October 2025. Canon R1, Godox V480C on-camera flash, Canon EF 28~135mm IS USM at 33mm at f/8 at ¹/₂₀₀ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 13.6). bigger.

Introduction       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

B&H Photo - Video - Pro Audio I buy only from these approved sources. I can't vouch for ads below.

This BMW ///     M850ix Convertible the first car I've bought for myself since I got my 1997 Mercedes SL500 decades ago. My neighbors have numerous Ferraris, Mercedes, McLarens, Porsches, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis and more, and nothing has caught my interest to replace my SL500 for all these years — until I drove this BMW. It's that amazing. I greatly prefer my M850ix to the foolish M8 version.

We all have our preferences. Mine is for big, roomy, comfortable, quiet, practical, silent, nimble and insanely powerful convertibles that are a hoot to drive. I love comfort, agility and silent power, and the BMW ///     M850ix Convertible has menu options to make the engine extra-quiet as I prefer, as well as the loud options that let it burble and scream and backfire in any mode you like. Whatever you want, the M850 does it.

I saw this on a BMW lot while looking for something else, immediately loved it, took it for a spin, and was hooked. The more I drove and investigated it, the more I had to have it.

Get the right options, and it even drives itself in traffic, which is exactly where you don't want to do the driving. The BMW's autopilot, called the ZDY Driving Assistance Pro Package (which is in addition to the regular ZDA Driving Assistance Package) lets you let go of the wheel and pedals and let your BMW drive itself for as long as there's traffic. You can raise both arms straight up in the air to wave to the Tesla drivers stuck in their sedans, whose phony "self-drive" modes require they keep their hands on the wheel. This BMW works completely hands-free.

If your garage is at a weird angle at the side of your house down a long, narrow, twisty driveway that's a pain to back down, BMW's "backup assistant" magically self-drives itself back out of wherever you parked it. Even if it's days later, it quickly can back itself out into the street where it used to take me forever trying to make 6-point turns to flip around and go out forwards.

All models from my first 2019 shown here to the latest 2026 version are identical, with the only difference being a slightly bigger central screen in the later years. All use the superior iDrive 7 system which makes everything easy to set with dedicated buttons and knobs rather than having to use the touch screen.

BMW ///     M850i xDrive Convertible, 11:08 AM, Saturday, 22 June 2024. iPhone 15 Pro Max. bigger.

New for BMW       intro       top

First over-the-top 8-series from BMW since the 1990s!

Also comes as a two-door coupe and as a longer-wheelbase four-door Gran Coupe with lots of rear legroom.

New since my 1997 SL500      intro       top

30-year newer design: the R129 SL500 debuted in Europe in 1989 while this M850i came out in 2019.

Apple CarPlay.

Just as comfortable with much tighter and nimbler handling.

Thickly padded convertible top is 10 dB quieter than my 1997 SL500  when up.

Turbochargers add far more power.

All-Wheel Drive so we can use all this power without just spinning our wheels.

Much more roomy interior for tall drivers. I'm only 6' 0" (182 cm) tall, but unlike other Mercedes, even with the driver's seat all the way back I barely had enough legroom, and my size 14 shoes would catch on the bottom of the dashboard in my 1997 SL500. Weird, seeing how the SL500 was always the car for ultra-rich sports stars, but now the BMW ///     M850ix Convertible has more than enough legroom and footroom for guys much bigger than I.

Rear-wheel steering for tighter turning.

Two tiny rear seats.

Larger trunk and folding rear seats.

Trunk opens and closes by waving a foot behind it.

Stability control (ESP was optional on the 1997 SL500 and not standard until later years).

Rear quarter windows allow much better rearward side visibility (behind 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock) with the top up for lane changes.

Ventilated seats.

Neck & ear warmer, heated center console, door panel armrests and steering wheel.

Self driving and numerous OOPS! safety features like lane departure corrections, blind-spot warnings and front-collision self-braking.

LASER self-steering headlights.

Parking sensors.

Surround-view 360º 3D parking camera.

Good       intro       top

An absolute hoot to drive: powerful, responsive, nimble, tight and precise with flat cornering.

Super comfortable, smooth and quiet. My M850i is a floating palace of luxury — or a floating island with its top down. This is a step above BMW's top 7-series, and I find it far more comfortable than our 2022 Mercedes S580.

Standard Adaptive M Suspension Pro (2VW) keeps cornering flat and the ride super comfy.

Insanely powerful: two or three times more power than necessary.

No turbo lag; as a V8, it just goes!

Impeccable interior quality, much better than my plasticy 2022 Mercedes S580. While both have all-leather interiors, my BMW ///     M850i has solid alloy interior door handles while my S580 is all crappy silver-painted plastic.

Brilliantly responsive transmission. Even in COMFORT mode it immediately knows when you want to move and downshifts instantly.

BMW's x-Drive all-wheel drive system, same as Audi's Quattro, Porsche's "4" and Mercedes' 4MATIC, gives the traction to get all this power to real-world roads. With this much power, dry roads are just as slippery to a super car under hard acceleration as wet roads are to regular cars. Two-wheel-drive supercars like Corvettes, Cobras, Hellcats, Ferraris and Mustang GT500s can't get all that power to the road in their lower gears for lack of traction. For instance, the 662 hp Mustang GT500, which weighs 700 pounds less than this 523 hp ///     M850i, takes a little longer (3.5s vs 3.4s) to get from 0 to 60 MPH with only rear-wheel drive. The 668 hp 2026 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing takes the same 3.4s for 0 to 60 MPH because with only rear-wheel drive it just can't use all that power. It all comes down to the fact that you can't use more than about 300 hp per axle on real-world roads — but rear-wheel drive car makers won't tell you that!

The ///     M850ix is faster than the exotic Ford GT40 and about as fast as the new 2005-2006 Ford GT supercar. Even though the Ford GTs weigh less, they are limited by having only rear wheel drive and no way to get all their power to the road at legal speeds. While car makers try to impress us with horsepower, the limiting factor has always been getting traction at legal speeds with this much power— as every drag racer knows.

The $2,000,000 6.5L V-12 Ferrari Monza SP2 is rated at 809 hp, but only 530 ft-lbs of torque. The $510,000 Ferrari 2025 Monza 12Cilindri Spider has 819 hp but only 500 ft-lbs. These Ferrari vanity cars only have rear-wheel drive, so even with less weight they're only rated to do 0-60 in 2.9s, same as my all-wheel drive Porsche Panamera Turbo and about the same as this ///     M850i. These Ferraris get half the gas mileage for the same performance. Geeze!

Smooth, quiet and easy-to-modulate brakes — not grabby and squeaky like the M8.

Standard rear-wheel steering (3º) gives a tight 39.0' (11.9 m) turning circle. Heck, I had to pay extra for this as an option in my $185,000 Porsche Panamera Turbo, geeze!

Very quiet with its insulated soft top up: only 62 dBA at 72 MPH on a quiet asphalt freeway. This is the same as a typical hard-top car and is as quiet with its top down as my Mercedes SL500 was with its soft top up!

Great visibility even with the top up. As a coupe, there's nothing blocking your view to the back left or right as you change lanes (Regular cars have big blind spots because of fat B-pillars behind the driver's door).

While the convertible top is rated to come down in 18 seconds, even while driving at up to 30 MPH, I measure mine coming down in just 15.18 seconds, and it goes up in 16.92 seconds. All the windows are up less than two seconds later at 18.65 seconds. This is fast enough to allow fairly safe gambles of moving the top while stopped at a red light.

Just keep holding the LOCK or UNLOCK button on the remote to open or close the top and all the windows.

The alarm system has interior motion detectors so it goes off if anyone sticks their hand inside while parked with the top down. It can be deactivated if you don't want it active.

Better handling than the coupe and four-door versions because of a much lower center-of-gravity. BMW's press data points out this convertible is 98% as stiff as the other versions, and it has no weight up high with the top down and has extra weight underneath from body reinforcements. A retracted convertible top weighs a lot less than an M8's carbon-fibre fiasco of a roof, and the extra weight at the bottom does even more to lower the center of gravity.

Low to the ground, like Formula One or a go kart. It's not your grandfather's sedan like an M3 or M5.

Conventional torque-converter automatic transmission means super-smooth shifting and starting from stops. The 1st to 2nd gear shift is especially smooth, unlike the PDK transmission in our Panamera Turbo.

Everything that looks like leather is leather. The center console, dashboard and doors are all covered in leather, not plastic.

"Backup Assistant" actually works fast to make it easy to back out of anything you may have gotten yourself into for parking.

The 360º Surround View w/3D View "Eye of God" camera system (option code ZX3 as part of the ZDA Driving Assistance Package) presents a stable point of view as you maneuver. This is far superior to the foolish Mercedes Surround View system in my 2022 Mercedes S580 which constantly tries to impress by moving the camera's point of view as you're trying to park, making it nearly impossible to figure out what's going on as you're also moving. The BMW system works much better to let us see where we are.

The 360º 3D Surround View camera system also offers remote image capture to your phone app so you can see what and who's near your car, as well as see the area and conditions around it, from anywhere. Here's how to use it.

The front turn signals are separate from the daytime running lights. The signals light in amber separately from the daytime running lights, which stay white as you signal.

Wireless CarPlay.

Wireless phone charging.

His and her two-fan HVAC system; each seat also has separate fan speed and heater controls.

Additional master window control switch that raises and lowers ALL windows at once, a must-have for convertibles.

Rear seats!

Rear seats fold forward for even more cargo capacity!

Biggest trunk I've seen in a convertible: 12 cubic feet with the top up! It runs all the way forwards to the backs of the folding rear seats; there's no gas tank in the way.

Retracted soft top never restricts access to the trunk. My top is always down so I can't use a hard-top convertible like the 2003-2021 Mercedes SLs, whose hard tops retract into covering their trunks! Those idiotic hard-top designs were for people who lived in Michigan or Stuttgart where they only get top-down weather a few weeks a year. (With the top up you can move up a partition and get even more space.)

Glass rear window with electric defroster, not simply plastic.

Head-up display (HUD) works great from pitch-black darkness to driving directly into blinding sun. Bravo!

Hands-free self-driving options (order both ZDY and ZDA) work great, and in freeway traffic really does drive the car all by itself.

Active (adaptive) cruise control works great, coming to full stops and automatically stopping and starting the engine as needed when things start to move again.

Active (adaptive) cruise control doesn't time-out while stopped as Mercedes does; if traffic is stopped for an hour, it will start again all by itself automatically whenever traffic starts moving, which is half the point of these systems. Active cruise control is easy to set to leave plenty of following distance; better than Mercedes which usually tries to follow too closely.

Active cruise control can be activated at any speed. If you're going slower than 20 MPH then it sets 20 MPH as the target speed.

Active cruise control easily sees motorcycles and bicyclists, and if there's a narrow road, correctly locks-on to the cyclist and follows safely behind him.

Optional Neck & Ear Warmers (4NH) blow warm air from the headrests to keep your ears warm on cold nights. Mercedes calls their version AIR SCARF.

With all the heating options I find it comfy to drive, top down, at 40º F (5º C) if I'm wearing a light jacket. If you stick your arm up or out into the cold air you'll appreciate how well the M850i keeps you warm when you feel how it's freezing outside!

Standard adaptive LED and LASER headlights (4AZ, and yes, there's a yellow LASER warning sticker inside them) that shine 600 yards (600 m) on high beam at higher speeds. BMWs have always had magnificent headlights, and these adaptive beauties work wonders at night steering themselves.

Great automatic high beam control in all situations.

All the electronics are super-smart and intuitive, making my 2022 Mercedes S580 feel like the ergonomic turd it is. There are too many ways in which this BMW betters my S-klasse to list. Among them are that:

The power windows, seats and garage door opener remotes just work when you get in without having to turn on the car.

High-beam control responds as soon as you touch the lever in the BMW, while it doesn't respond until you release the lever in the 2022 Mercedes.

The seat memories finish moving the seat all by itself without having to hold the button the whole time as in most Mercedes.

The BMW's camera sees when the guy in front of you starts to move and restarts the (autostopped) engine all by itself.

We never know where to find settings in our S580 because there is no single HOME button to get to anything in a logical way, while this BMW, like an iPhone, has one main HOME screen for everything from which it's trivially easy to get to any setting. Heck, our new Mercedes clocks don't even have leading-zero suppression, a 1970s innovation that let digital clocks read correctly as 8:30 AM rather than 08:30 AM in the Mercedes.

It remembers my seat heater and cooler settings when I get back in, while after every stop I have to turn these all back on in my Mercedes. The BMW even lets me set it to turn on seat heating or cooling - and to what level - anytime it gets hotter or cooler outside than my preset values (these are called "rules" in iDrive).

Easy to set to unlock when you get close, and lock automatically when you walk away. Far better than Mercedes KEYLESS GO, the doors are already unlocked before you touch the door handle, and you never have to touch anything to lock the doors when you leave.

Power windows work as soon as you get in; you don't have to start it first.

Real door handles that work, not the motorized electronic ones that rarely pop out correctly on our Mercedes S580 and the new SL series.

Auto dimming center and driver's rear-view mirrors at night (passenger's side mirror doesn't dim).

The iDrive 7 system of the ///     M850i is super intuitive, with one HOME button from which we can find everything we need, far better than the newer i-Drive 8 which no longer has just one HOME button making it nearly impossible to find anything again.

The ///     M850i is loaded with dedicated buttons and controls for presets, climate controls and more.

Easy to hit the A/C MAX button as you get into a hot car. Jump into a hot car with the bigger touch screen and you can't even get into the A/C menu to turn on MAX A/C until you get past all the warning screens!

iDrive 7's real, dedicated buttons are much better than the big screen — but almost no buttons — in iDrive 8 in newer models like my 2024 330i. I've got dedicated buttons for seat heating and cooling, his & hers temperatures and fans, A/C Max and especially Air Recirculation. Tell me you can find air recirculation seven menus deep on an LCD before you drive through a huge cloud of just kicked up dirt, fertilizer or dust as you're driving!

Eight dashboard preset buttons are far more than just radio presets: they're easy to program to display or control anything in the i-Drive menu system like CarPlay, tire pressures, turbo boost, oil temperature, weather forecasts, trip computers, audio equalizers, gas station prices, news and more. You can see how they're programmed simply by holding your finger over each, or press a few seconds to program them. Easy! (BMW is economizing in the newer i-Drive 8 system in lesser BMWs which removes the climate controls and preset buttons and instead hides them inside a touchscreen menu where you no longer can set them by feel as you drive.)

Option ZGC are floating wheel center caps (also available at Amazon and called nabenabdeckung feststehend in German) that rotate to keep the BMW wheel logos vertical while driving or parked, just like on Rolls-Royce, who are also owned by BMW. This is super handy when you use your car as a model so you never have to rotate the logos later in Photoshop.

Voice assistant works well, much better than in our 2022 Mercedes S580. She has an option to keep her replies short, far better than the run-on baloney our 2022 Mercedes S580 "Hey Mercedes" lady gives us.

Easy to program the Voice Assistant to reply to anything, like Christine, Dorothea, Heidi, Liebchen, Schatzi or anything, and you don't need to preface it with a rude "hey" unless you want to. Even if you program it to something whacky, it still also responds to "Hey BMW."

Voice assistant works even more easily by tapping her button on the steering wheel, and she shuts up immediately if you tap that button again.

Easy to get SPORT transmission mode: just click the shifter to the left, and if you forget to put it back to regular when you park, the M850 does it for you:

BMW ///     M850 Automatic Transmission Selector Returns to Standard Position from SPORT. Play video.

See the Swarovski Crystal shift knob (with a big, backlit "8" inside), the START/STOP button and the big iDrive knob touch controller? That's the 4A2 Glass Controls option ($650), which also replaces the the radio's VOL/POWER button, for a total of four cut and polished Swarovski crystals. It's a huge improvement over dull black plastic.

If you forget to turn off the automatic wipers when you get home, no worry: they won't run until the windshield gets wet again.

Audio volume control has a huge range, making it easy to set a comfortable level from ultra loud to very quiet with the engine off.

Electric Active Roll Stabilization (EARS) uses sensors and electric motors to twist both the front and rear anti-sway bars to counteract cornering forces and keep the M850i flat and level in corners.

Two 12 volt batteries: a huge 105 Ah Varta AGM battery in the trunk which runs everything, and a smaller 60 Ah Varta AGM dedicated to the Electric Active Roll Stabilization (EARS) system mounted on the right firewall of the engine compartment. That's 2 kWh of batteries!

Most exterior body panels are lightweight aluminum.

Goes great over speed bumps and humps. Many cars get flustered, while the ///     M850 just rolls over them — so long as you have enough ground clearance.

Integrated garage door opener has a huge range of about 150 feet (50 meters) so there's no waiting for your door to open.

Integrated garage door opener needs just one tap to open the door; you don't need to hold it a few seconds as older openers did (or as those on Porsches still do) to work with modern rolling-code systems.

CarPlay works great. I can even get radar weather maps for anyplace on earth right on my dashboard!

Even the MyRadar app shows RADAR weather maps for anyplace on earth in CarPlay. bigger.

Bad       intro       top

I'm sure I'll eventually find something, but this car is even less expensive than its alternatives. The Porsche Panamera Turbo has similar power, technology and handling, but doesn't come as a convertible, lacks comfort and advanced creature features and costs 50% more. I got this BMW used and paid the same as other people pay for boring used SUVs. I wanted to get excited about the current Mercedes SL series which finally returned to a soft top in 2022, but costs far more and has the same awful user interface and motorized door handles that rarely work from our S580. No wonder I see loads of new leftover 2022 SL55s and SL63s sitting unsold on Mercedes lots in 2023, but haven't seen an M850 convertible new or used sitting on a lot in years. I got my BMW after an unheard of five straight months of rain and overcast in San Diego in early 2023 when no one else was crazy enough to buy a convertible!

The tachometer runs backwards and it isn't particularly visible, or is replaced by an MPG gauge in ECO PRO mode. The artists had their way here so there's loads of style but not much visibility to the speedometer and tachometer. Everything about the car, from the grill to the gauges to the door pulls share the same hexagonal motif, but the gauge needles are short and the same orange color as everything else. Sadly the needles aren't big, bold fluorescent VDO red, but short little orange things. Redline is 6,500 RPM and shows correctly on the HUD with 6,000 to 6,499 RPM in yellow, but 6,000 RPM is red, not yellow e on the dash tachometer. BMW does it this way for some odd reason on other similar models and reserving the correct yellow lines for the crappy-riding M8. Heck, even my 1990s Dodge Caravan company cars had much better gauges!

Gauges in ECO PRO Mode. Look, Mom, No Tachometer! bigger.

No cruise control stalk like Porsches and real Mercedes. Instead there are random buttons on the steering wheel that do different things depending on what the cruise control is doing (like the RESUME/CANCEL button), so you often have to hit a button more than once to get it to do what you want it to do. In Mercedes the stalks do the same thing any time you hit them. Worse, depending on what cruise and self-driving options your particular BMW has, there will be different functions in different locations so if you have more than one BMW (or get loan cars during service appointments) you'll always be hitting the wrong buttons. Porsches and real Mercedes have all had the same cruise control stalk for many, many decades, so using it is second nature and not tarnished by confusion as it is in BMW. Heck, my 1986 Mustang GT Convertible had cruise controls on its steering wheel which seemed to have much better ergonomics than BMW today.

Every model of BMW seems to have a different kind of shifter for its automatic transmission. They have different shift patterns, different functions and differently shaped controls. If you own more than one BMW or borrow a service loaner, you'll probably be doing the wrong thing as you try to shift the way you do on your usual car. Of the three BMWs in my garage (this 2019 850i, 2020 X5M Competition and 2023 530e), all three have completely different shift controls.

Missing       intro       top

Massaging seats were only available as part of an uncommon executive package and only for a couple of years, not in 2019 for my M850 and not today in 2024. That's OK, as the seats support my back in such a way that simply wiggling a little bit left and right feels even better than other cars' wimpy massage features.

No cooled or heated cup holders. Cooled cupholders are the only only thing I actually miss; even massage isn't needed with these seats.

Only two seat position memories, not 3 as in Mercedes.

No air suspension, as often seen on ultra-luxury cars. The standard Adaptive M Suspension Professional (2VW) uses individual electronically-variable dampers with regular steel springs. It works GREAT, but this means no ride height control — and no exotic air suspension repair bills either.

Rear seats are tiny. My 6-foot kid fits, but not for long trips.

Only one button per seat for both heating and ventilation. Tap the button and use the center touch screen to set heating and ventilation. Once selected, the button alone can be tapped to change the amount of whatever you selected on the LCD. If you selected just heating, the button has three red LEDs that work just fine, and if you selected ventilation it has three blue LEDs that work as expected, but to change from heating to ventilation (or both), you have to use the touch screen again.

No controls on the driver's side to adjust the passenger seat; you have to be on the passenger side to adjust it.

Not a lot of ground clearance (4.5" or 114mm); be careful as you usually won't clear parking wheel stops and have to stop before you run over them:

BMW M850i xDrive Convertible: Very Low Ground Clearance. bigger.

What seems to be touching the parking wheel stop are the two black plastic wind deflectors in front of the tires, which are closer to the ground than the bumper-mounted wind deflector. You can't see it, but there is also a metal skid plate plate between the front wheels with the same ground clearance as the two wind deflectors seen here.

While the Backup Assistant and self-driving modes are great, the "Self Parking" mode is silly. It takes far longer to let the BMW 850 to try to park for you than to do it yourself. Worse, if you can get self-parking to work, the BMW M850 does most of the steering while the 850 is stopped between going forwards and back, which tends to wear out your tires faster.

Tiny sun visors don't do much. They're tiny because the windshield is very low to give the M850 a very low slung look, but leaves very little space above your eyes to put a larger sun visor. The visor doesn't extend from its pivot and the vanity mirrors are very short to fit inside the small visors.

No jack or spare tire; comes with run-flats.

No rear fog light; standard in Europe and in today's USA Mercedes to make yourself visible in heavy fog. This is probably because Americans have no idea what these are and most often turn them on by accident, in which case it looks like they have their left brake light stuck on.

Doesn't display current gear selection unless you have the transmission in Sport made (the shift lever moved to the left) or Manual mode via the steering-wheel paddles or the shift gate. Otherwise the dash simply shows "D" rather than S1-S8 or M1-M8, even if you've selected a Sport driving mode. (Driving modes are different from shift modes, which are but one part of a driving mode.) In other words, it shows "D" but never D1-D8 as you'd expect.

Speedometer and tachometer graphics make them mostly illegible in most modes, with tiny "needles" trying to compete with everything else on the screen.

The only switches to control the two tiny rear window segments are on the driver's arm rest. There's no room in the back seats to give them controls for these little window sections. Few convertibles have rear-seat controls for their rear windows.

Oddly no voltmeter or ammeter.

No remote way to lower the trunk divider if you left it up with the top up to carry more; you have to get out of the car and lower it manually before you can lower the top.

There's no light deep in the trunk if the divider is down and blocking the light from the other trunk lights. In other words, with the top and trunk divider down you need a flashlight to see all the way back into the very deep trunk.

Rear turn signals are red, not yellow, in the USA model.

While BMW implies that Spotify is included along with the price of the BMW Connect data service; it's not. All it does is let you play your own paid-for premium Spotify subscription through your car radio without needing a phone. Assuming you have a phone, this feature isn't that valuable on its own.

No seat belt presenters, so we have to reach way back to grab the seat belt after we get in. Mercedes coupes offer seat belt presenters which hand front seat occupants their belts:

2023 Mercedes C43 Convertible Set Belt Presenter. bigger.

Sticker       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

2019 BMW M850i xDrive Convertible Build Sheet. bigger.

Specifications       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

Engine (Power Unit)

Quad-cam, 32 valve direct-injected V8 with twin gas-operated intercooled turbochargers, VALVETRONIC variable valve timing and double VANOS variable camshaft timing.

523 hp from 5,500 to 6,000 RPM USA (530 hp (390 kW) EU).

553 lb-ft (750 Nm) from 1,800 to 4,600 RPM.

The curves below imply a 6,500 RPM redline, and that's where the M850i shifts at full throttle, although my dashboard tachometer redline starts at 6,000 RPM. The small, unnumbered bargraph tachometer in the HUD seems to be yellow from 6,000 RPM to 6,500 RPM.

268 CID (4,395 cc).

Aluminum block & heads.

Maximum turbo boost (indicated): 1.25 bar (18 PSI), which makes 4.4 litres (268 CID) perform like 9.9 litres (604 CID) since 1.25 bar of boost is 2.25 times atmospheric pressure, or 67.4" (1,711 mm) Hg manifold absolute pressure.

17 / 20 / 26 MPG EPA.

M850i Power Curves. bigger.

Dimensions       specs       top

191.0 x 74.9 x 53.0 inches (4,851 x 1,902 x 1,345 millimeters) LWH.

39.0' (11.9 m) turning circle with 3º rear-wheel steering.

111.1 inch (2,822 mm) wheelbase.

4.9 inch (125 mm) ground clearance.

0.32 Cd × 23.9 sq. ft. (2.22 m²) frontal area wind resistance top up. (Convertibles have typically a 0.70 Cd with the top down.)

Capacities       specs       top

12.36 cu. ft (350 litres) luggage capacity, top up. Somewhat less with top down, much more with one or two rear seats folded forward.

17.96 gallon (68 litre) fuel tank, 91 RON.

11.1 quarts (10.5 litres) 0W-30 engine oil.

Transmission       specs       top

8-speed automatic with torque-converter.

Final drive ratio: 2.813

Tire revs/mile: 780.5 (average).

Assuming a locked-up torque converter:

* Electronically limited to 155 MPH, which indicates about 163 MPH on BMW's deliberately optimistic speedometers. If you defeat the electronic speed limiter it should run a true 187 MPH at 5,638 RPM in seventh gear at 523 hp (390 kW), which ought to read about 197 MPH or 316 kmph on BMW's speedometer.

* Electronically limited to 155 MPH, which indicates about 163 MPH on BMW's deliberately optimistic speedometers. If you defeat the electronic speed limiter it should run a true 187 MPH at 5,638 RPM in seventh gear at 523 hp (390 kW), which ought to read about 197 MPH or 316 kmph on BMW's speedometer.

It needs about 181 hp (135 kW) to cruise at 155 MPH (250 km/h).

Weight       specs       top

4,442/4,607 lbs. (2,015/2,090 kg) DIN/EU per BMW.

4,643 lbs. (2,106 kg) C&D April 2019.

Wheels & Tires       specs       top

5 × 112mm Ø bolt pattern (same as Mercedes, Audi, VW and others. Older BMWs used 5 × 120mm Ø).

780.5 revs/mile, average:

Front

Front Left TIre & Wheel, BMW M850i xDrive Convertible, 9:36 AM, Saturday, 07 July 2025. Nikon Z5 II, Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 at its fixed f/4.5 at ¹/₆₀ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 10⅓), Radiant Photo software to add detail in the dark. bigger or see the overall picture.

8J x 20 wheel.

245/35R20 95Y XL MICHELIN Pilot Sport 3 ★ MOE ZP BSW

320 / AA / A.

9/32" tread depth.

1,499 lbs at 50 PSI max.

10.0" wide overall on 8.5" rim; 8.1" tread width.

777 revs/mile, 26.8" diameter.

Weighs 27.1 lbs.

OE made in Italy.

MSPN 87416.

Rear

Right Rear Wheel & Tire, 9:37 AM, Saturday, 07 July 2025. Nikon Z5 II, Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 at its fixed f/4.5 at ¹/₆₀ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 10⅓), Radiant Photo software to add detail in the dark. bigger.

9J x 20 wheel.

275/30R20 97Y XL MICHELIN Pilot Sport 3 ★ MOE ZP BSW

320 / AA / A.

9/32" tread depth.

1,609 lbs at 50 PSI max.

10.9" wide overall on 9.5" rim; 9.3" tread width.

784 revs/mile, 26.5" diameter.

Weighs 27.9 lbs.

OE made in France.

MSPN 69212.

CarPlay Screen Grab Sizes (Pixel Dimensions)       specs       top

Through iOS 18: 1,920 × 720 pixels.

As of iOS 26: 1,944 × 728 pixels.

Performance       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

Top Raise & Lower Speeds

The top goes down in 15.18 seconds, measured.

The top goes up in 16.92 seconds. All the windows are up less than two seconds later at 18.65 seconds.

Acceleration

3.4s 0-60 MPH on the track with the engine already revved in Launch Control and Sport+ mode, measured with a real-time optical tracker. These are how the numbers you see in ads and magazines are measured.

5.09s 0-60 MPH as measured slightly uphill in the real world at a traffic signal from idle dead-stopped in Comfort mode as read from the 850's own somewhat delayed-readout digital speedometer, and corrected for BMW's over-estimating speedometer which reads about 1.5 MPH high at 60 MPH. I stopped my timer when my speedometer read 62 MPH. Seeing how the digital speedometer reads with about a one second delay, this matches the magazine tests and shows we don't need to drive like idiots in Launch mode to get up and go.

8.3s 0-100 MPH, magazine tested.

11.8s @ 119 MPH standing ¼ mile, magazine tested.

20.9s 0-150 MPH, magazine tested.

Braking       performance       top

70-0 MPH in 151 feet.

Cornering       performance       top

0.99 g.

Fuel Economy       performance       top

EPA rated 17 / 20 / 26 MPG.

EPA numbers are with the top up, which has half the wind resistance than with the top down. Expect fewer MPG with the top down, but to be honest I got 25.3 MPG with my top down for a cold-start short 23-mile trip mostly on the freeway back in October 2023.

I average 17.0 MPG with the top down locally on side roads, and I get 29.0 MPG after hours of continuous driving at around 72 MPH with the top up on the freeway. I'll average somewhere in between these two numbers depending on the percentages of where I drive.

At a steady 43 MPH I'm turning 1,000 RPM at 100 Newton-meters (75 Ft-Lbs), which means my V8 is making just 14 HP. It needs about the same torque at 1,100 RPM at 48 MPH, making 16 HP.

What's unexpected is that the MPG indication is extremely accurate, and if anything underestimates by about one percent. Most cars, even our Mercedes S580, read about 10% high because, unlike odometers and speedometers that have US federal requirements for accuracy, there are no requirements for MPG gauges to read accurately. Making them read higher make people much happier and less likely to start class action suits when they discover that few cars ever meet their EPA MPG in real-world driving. For instance, we actually got money back from a class action suit against Porsche (our Porsche also had a superbly accurate MPG indicator and I never found anything usual about its fuel economy).

Cabin Noise       performance       top

It's very quiet with the insulated soft top up. I measure:

62 dBA at 72 MPH top-up on a quiet asphalt freeway.

65 dBA at 72 MPH top-up on a grooved concrete freeway.

73 dBA at 72 MPH top down and windows up on a concrete freeway without other traffic, without the windscreen.

77 dBA at 75 MPH top down and windows up on a concrete freeway next to lots of other traffic, without the windscreen.

This is 7 dB quieter than my 1997 Mercedes SL500 at 72 MPH: 65 dBA in this BMW versus 72 dBA in the SL500, soft top-up on a concrete freeway.

This BMW is as quiet with its top down as my SL500 was with its soft top up!

While parked, the soft top attenuates outside noise by 26 dBA.

Speedometer Calibration       performance       top

BMW deliberately miscalibrates its speedometers to read faster than you're going. BMW calls this "speedometer advance" as explained in BMW Technical Service Bulletin TSB 1996-620296.

This keeps BMW drivers happy while they get fewer tickets and clock what they think are faster 0-60 MPH times.

My speedometer reads:

In general, subtract 2 MPH at legal speeds and you're good.

My odometer and indicted MPG are within ±1%.

Outside Temperature Gauge       performance       top

Like many BMWs, it usually reads about 2º F (1º C) high.

By comparison, my Porsches and Mercedes and most cars are usually dead-on.

Climate Control       performance       top

The temperature sets from 16.5 ~ 27.5° C (about 62 ~ 82º F), as well as LO and HI.

The automatic fan speed control sets in five levels, as well as OFF. This means that while Mercedes simply set to AUTO and that's it unless you revert to manual fan speed control, BMWs have five automatic levels to suit your taste which vary themselves with conditions.

Harmon/Kardon Logic 7 Surround Sound System       performance       top

The standard Harmon/Kardon Logic 7 Surround system sounds great to casual listeners and plays loud enough to deafen your neighbors without distortion.

BMW M850ix Convertible interior passenger door panel with Harmon Kardon audio system. bigger.

As expected, the multi-amplified system can go ear-splittingly loud without effort or distortion. It easily can crank out so much undistorted bass that you can't see the view in the rear-view mirror because it's vibrating so much along with the windshield!

Stereo subwoofers. Bass is in natural stereo, not summed to mono, thanks to a 7" woofer under each front seat. It has no real subwoofers that go down to 16 Hz; these are just the typically boomy tuned car woofers under the seats. I said "subwoofers" as few people know the difference between a regular woofer as most cars have and a legitimate subwoofer which, by definition, must be able to reproduce loud and clean down to at least 20 Hz — which very few speakers can do and even more rarely in cars.

For serious music lovers it has the typical car stereo voicing: boosted upper midrange for false clarity and boomy bass to impress the innocent. This makes the Harmon/Kardon system super clear with strong bass for most people, but for serious listening requires turning down the 2 kHz and 5 kHz equalizer sliders and boosting 10kHz a bit, with the bass control adjusted to taste depending on the source material.

I find these settings best for my tastes:

Surround ON; normal strength.

Bass set to taste, typically about halfway up depending on the source material.

Treble: -3 clicks. On rare occasion I may change this depending on the source materiel.

Equalizer at 2 kHz: -2 clicks. I never need to touch this.

Equalizer at 5 kHz: -3 clicks. I never need to touch this.

Equalizer at 10 kHz: +1 click. I never need to touch this.

These equalizer and tone control settings are the same for all sources; they don't save and recall differently by source as some Mercedes do.

Bowers & Wilkins Sound System       performance       top

If you're curious about the optional $3,400 Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) sound system, forget it if your definition of "good" means smooth, accurate and detailed sound. The optional Bowers & Wilkins system has nothing to do with B&W's studio monitors that I love so much, and seems to have everything to do with colored lights in the speakers.

The Bowers & Wilkins system is a little better than the Harmon/Kardon, but oddly it's more muffled than smooth, and its bass is still boomy rather than flat and tight. I originally wished I had gotten the Bowers & Wilkins system, but once I heard it I'm glad I saved $3,400.

The optional Bowers & Wilkins system isn't much smoother and it still has boomy bass which impresses the unknowing, but neither current system has any deep bass, typical for convertibles as they have no back deck for mounting speakers to use the trunk as box volume.

The Bowers & Wilkins system (like the Harmon/Kardon) doesn't seem to do anything to muffle reflections and resonance from inside the doors, so its sound is colored by the mangled sound coming back out from inside. What make Bowers & Wilkins studio monitors so good is their insane dedication to ensuring that all the sound coming from the backs of the drivers is completely absorbed inside the enclosure, while in a car this mangled sound comes back out to screw up the experience.

The metal grills for the Bowers & Wilkins system are bent to shape after they're perforated, so their surfaces are not smoothly rounded since the metal bends more where there are perforations. The thin aluminum grills of the Bowers & Wilkins system are easily dented which often makes them not very appealing. The standard Harmon Kardon speaker grills seem woven and are far more resistant to showing defects.

Stereo subwoofers under the seats, like the Harmon/Kardon system.

The optional DSP sound system back in my 2003 540i was was much better than either of these: smooth and detailed with tight, well-defined bass and very little resonance or stored energy.

Sound quality has nothing to do with how many watts or speakers or amplifiers a system has; it has everything to do with how well it was designed and how well the speakers are enclosed so you're not hearing sound from the backs of the speakers coming back out after it's been mangled inside the door panels. Either system easily plays loud enough to damage everyone's hearing permanently.

User Profiles & BMW ID       performance       top

I had a loan car and loaded my settings from my existing BMW ID into the new car.

The good news is that some settings, like my preferences for units of measurement and my various HOME screen settings came over from my main car, but the bad news is that most settings, like my settings for the numbered preset buttons, didn't. It's better than nothing, but far from perfect.

Completely Automatic Locking & Unlocking       performance       top

A step above anything from Porsche or Mercedes, it's easy to program the BMW to unlock automatically as I come up to it, and to lock automatically when I walk away — never having to touch any handles! Of course I have to grab the handle to open the door; the point is that it's already unlocked so I don't have to wait for it to unlock before pulling.

This also will unlock and fold out the mirrors, and then lock and fold them back in every time you walk past this car in your garage for whatever reason.

After several days of this if I don't drive this BMW that it will ignore me. I don't know if it's programmed to stop this after a certain period of time if no one gets in, or if it stops doing this if I've drained my battery a certain amount.

Parking Beeps       performance       top

The front beeper seems to sound in F; the rear seems to be a B♭.

USB-C Charging       performance       top

Charging a Nikon Z5 II via USB-C, 8:56 AM, Saturday, 19 July 2025. Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 1× (6.8mm actual or 24mm eq.) camera at f/1.8 at ¹/₁₂₅ at Auto ISO 64 (LV 9.3), exactly as shot. bigger.

The USB-C charge port in the center console (under your elbow) has only a basic 15W (5V at 3A measured) output.

I use an Anker 323 charger popped into the 12V outlet in the same compartment which is rated 30W over USB-C (20V at 1.5A) and actually puts out about 32W.

If you want more power and more outlets, I also use the mighty Anker 535 charger, which I measure really does put out at least 60W, and is rated for 67W from its various outputs.

Compared       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

The Three Body Styles: Convertible, 2-door & 4-door       compared       top

Today's 8 series comes in convertible as seen here, or as a very similar two-door coupe with the same length and same tiny rear seats, and also as a longer-wheelbase four-door Gran Coupe with much more rear legroom and overall length.

This is wonderful, as you have the same magnificent car available in three very different body styles. The similar Porsche Panamera Turbo only comes as a four door.

The Three Performance Variations: 840i, ///     M850i and ///     M8       compared       top

God bless BMW as each of the three body styles also comes in three different versions: a competent, powerful and economical turbo straight-six 840i, my favorite comfy and quiet BiTurbo V8 M850i, and a showy M8 which has almost the same BiTurbo V8 engine and about the same performance as the M850i but plays tricks with gear ratios, a stiff suspension and lots of engine noise and vibration with a crummy ride, noisy brakes and abysmal fuel economy to give an impression of more power.

The M8 comes in two versions, the regular M8 and the even more expensive M8 Competition.

i Versus ix

The "X" means X-Drive all wheel drive.

All the 850s and M8s have X-Drive all wheel drive to get all that power to the road. I got lazy typing 850i rather than M850i xDrive because //     M850i xDrive Convertible is too much of a mouthfull.

All 850s are actually M850i xDrive.

Only the 840 comes as two-wheel drive, the 840i, or comes as all-wheel drive, the 840i xDrive.

M Versus Not

No 840s have an M in their name.

All 850s and 8s are prefaced with an ///     M, as in ///     M850i xDrive and ///     M8. Again, I don't always type all that in the interest of brevity.

Versus the 2019-2026 840i       compared       top

The 840i is a Turbo 3.0 L inline six rated 335 hp from 5,000 - 6,500 RPM and 369 lb-ft from 1,600 to 4,500 RPM.

Today's 840i has a little more power and torque than the classic SL500's 5.0 Litre V8!

The 840i also more power and more torque than the 12-cylinder 5.0 litre 850i (1990-1991) or 12-cylinder 5.4 litre 850Ci (1992-1999) ever did. Only the 1990s 5.6 litre V-12 850CSi had a little more power than today's turbo 6.

While today's 840i has the same 155 MPH top speed limit, it accelerates faster than any classic 850, rated 4.7s 0-60 versus even the fastest 1992-1999 850CSi's 5.8s 0-60 MPH time.

Compared to today's ///     M850i, the 840i drives about the same. The 840i gets better fuel economy, while its engine has to work a little harder and thus makes more of a gentle hum rather than the silence of the ///     M850i's V8 in normal driving.

Either of today's 840i or ///     M850i have more than enough power for any reasonable driving.

This 2019-2026 ///     M850i       compared       top

The ///     M850i is the thinking man's version of the 8 series.

The ///     M850i usually is silent, unless you set its exhaust to be noisy. It's an immensely overpowered car that keeps everything under control no matter how foolishly you drive. It's comfortable over any road, and sticks like the dickens and corners flat when punched or pushed. Even in quiet mode it goes Braaaap! around 3,000 RPM if you're giving it some gas.

The ///     M850i is the same for all these years. The center console screen grew a couple of inches in later years, while everything else is the same great stuff.

Even the 2024 ///     M850i thankfully keeps the superior i-Drive 7 system with 8 real preset buttons and dedicated climate control switches rather than the cost-reduced touchscreen-only interface of lesser 2024 models like the X5 with i-Drive 8.5.

Versus the 1999-2026 M8 and M8 Competition       compared       top

The M8 is noisier, rides crappier, has less-comfortable seats and sucks much more gas than the ///     M850i, while giving about the same real-world performance.

Do not get a convertible M8 if you plan to drive with the top down. The M8's brakes, like those of many ultra-performance cars, often squeak. While you can tolerate this on a closed car, it will drive you absolutely nuts with the top down. As convertible drivers know, you hear everything wrong with everyone else's car when you're driving, and the last thing you want is an M8 with its squeaky brakes. This is no secret, just ask your dealer's service department and they'll confirm that it's normal for M cars to have squeaky brakes.

Also avoid ordering the M8 with bucket seats, as you can't get neck warmers with them, a necessity for all-year top-down driving.

The M8 is not a luxury car. The M8 is a car designed for the track, not for comfort or luxury. If you want quiet comfort and luxury, you want the ///     M850i as I do.

The M8 is a car for people who spend more time reading magazine reviews than actually driving, or who just like to "flex" that they bought the BMW with the highest profit margin (markup). No one takes these to the track, and when you do take an ///     M850i or 840i to the track they also handle supremely well. Germans don't screw around.

While kids who read magazine reviews all know the M8 Competition has 617 hp versus "only" 523 hp in the ///     M850i , what the magazines (who have always been in cahoots with the car makers trying to get you to spring for the M8 Competition without first trying the ///     M850i) choose to forget is that each engine actually has the same power most of the time!

All three 4.4 litre V8s in the ///     M850i , M8 and M8 Competition have exactly the same displacement and exactly the same 553 lb-ft of torque and therefore exactly the same horsepower from 1,800 to 4,600 RPM!!!

The only power difference is that while the ///     M850i makes this torque up to 4,600 RPM and starts to fall off above that, the M8 makes this same torque up to 5,600 RPM and the M8 Competition does it up to 5,800 RPM. The only difference in performance is when you floor it and then only when the revs go above 4,600 RPM.

Horsepower ratings are peak and are only at very small RPM ranges. The ///     M850i makes full power from 5,500 to 6,000 RPM, while the M8 and M8 Competition make their peak rated horsepower only at exactly 6,000 RPM.

Only in a small band between 4,600 and 5,600 or 5,800 RPM, and only at full throttle, does the M8 or M8 Competition have any more power. Otherwise the ///     M850i, M8 and M8 Competition all have exactly the same power at and below 4,600 RPM, and rarely does anyone see more than 4,600 RPM anywhere other than the racetrack.

If you compare the power curves for all three engines, they are identical up to 4,600 RPM! Some day I'll make a graphic with all three superimposed on each other.

The M8 is rated 600 hp and 553 lb-ft from 1,800 to 5,600 RPM.

The M8 Competition is rated 617 hp and 553 lb-ft from 1,800 to 5,800 RPM.

So why does the M8 and M8 Competition feel faster and suck so much more premium fuel if it has the same engine performance at all reasonable engine speeds?

Simple: the brutal suspensions of the M8s make you have to endure every bump and road imperfection, and it's far noisier with more engine exhaust note due to a less effective exhaust system, and very importantly the transmission is programed, even in the default ROAD mode, to shift later and keep the engine at higher RPMs so it feels more responsive. Click the ///     M850i's shifter to the left for Sport programming and it does the same thing.

And last but not least, the biggest reason along with the noise and vibration that make the M8 and M8 Competition feel "faster" is the oldest trick in the book: BMW swapped-in a lower 3.154:1 axle in place of the ///     M850i's 2.813:1 rear axle so the engine is always turning about 12% faster in the same gear.

The accelerator pedals are programmed differently in the M cars to work as if you're pressing them further than in the other cars. It doesn't make the cars any faster at full throttle; it just makes them seem faster at part throttle where everyone drives.

Yes, the M8 and M8 Competition are a little bit faster on the test track, but aren't faster in actual real-world driving. Personally I prefer my ///     M850i because it's much more comfortable, runs longer between fuel stops and is still more than twice as powerful as anyone needs for any real-world driving where you're not wearing a helmet or being egged-on by car magazines to drive like an idiot. The ///     M850i hits 120 MPH in under 12 seconds; do you really need any more power?

There are differences in gauges, menus and shifters in the M8s. For instance, oil temperature rather than coolant temperature is shown on the lower right. The M8 speedometer reads to 200 MPH linearly rather than to 160 MPH with optimized non-linear scales in the ///     M850i and 840i.

I'm not kidding about the M8; I also own an X5 M Competition with the same 617 HP V8 as the M8. The M8 is more show and noise than actual go; people have no idea how much power the 840i and ///     M850i have if they'd just step a little harder on the gas pedal. The M cars are a hoot to drive short distances, but most of this is rowdier theatrics rather than actual higher performance.

Versus the 2019-2026 840d       compared       top

This is an inline 6-cylinder turbodiesel for Europe. Like the 840i, it has loads of power and uses even less fuel than the 840i.

It's rated at 320 hp (235 kw) at 4,400 RPM and 500 lb-ft (680 Nm) of torque from 1,750 - 2,250 RPM with the same transmission but a 2.647 final drive ratio.

It's rated for 0-62 MPH in 5.2s, which is about 4.8s for 0-60 — also way faster than any of the V-12s from the 1990s.

Versus the Iconic 1990s 850i

The original 1990s 850i series are icons of automotive styling, a living classic wedge supercar with pop-up headlights and an ultralow Cd of 0.29.

1990-1991 850i

The 1990 850i had a mammoth 5.0 litre V-12 that made 296 hp with 332 lb-ft of torque.

0-60 was about 6.3 seconds with a 155 MPH limiter - oddly identical performance to the 1997 SL500 with a V8.

1992-1999 850Ci

The 850i was renamed to the 850Ci in 1992, with a larger 5.4 liter V-12 with 332 hp and 361 lb-ft of torque.

1992-1999 850CSi

The 850CSi had an even larger 5.6 liter V-12 with 375 hp and 406 lb-ft of torque.

It ran about 5.8s 0-60 with the same 155 MPH electronic limiter.

1992-1999 840i

1992 also saw a stripper 840Ci with a 4.0 litre V8 with 282 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque.

In 1995 the 840i got a larger 4.4 litre V8 with the same 282 hp but 310 lb-ft of torque.

Versus the $2,000,000 6.5L V-12 Ferrari Monza SP2 & $510,000 Ferrari 2025 Monza 12Cilindri Spider       compared       top

809 hp, 530 ft-lb Ferrari Monza SP2 6.5L V12 Engine, 10:02 AM, Saturday, 04 January 2025. EOS R5 II, RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Z at 126mm at f/4.5 at ¹/₃₂₀ at Auto ISO 100 (LV 12¾), Radiant Photo software. bigger or camera-original 45 MP © 3.8 MB JPG Quality 1 file.

The $2,000,000 6.5L V-12 Ferrari Monza SP2 is rated at 809 hp, but only 530 ft-lbs of torque.

The $510,000 Ferrari 2025 Monza 12Cilindri Spider has 819 hp but only 500 ft-lbs.

These Ferraris are vanity cars with only rear-wheel drive, so even with less weight they're only rated to do 0-60 in 2.9s, same as my all-wheel drive Porsche Panamera Turbo and not much better than this ///     M850i at 3.4 seconds.

These Ferraris get half the gas mileage, but for your millions, on-road performance doesn't measure much differently. At US legal speeds, all that extra power does is spin the Ferrari's back wheels, or have the Ferrari's traction controls cut power to keep the back wheels hooked-up — but no way will Ferrari's marketing and sales people let that reality out of the bag. With this much power in any of these cars, dry roads are as slippery as wet roads to regular cars.

AWD cars do much better, keeping all four wheels hooked up to get you moving. Geeze!

Versus the Mercedes SL500 (1989 ~ 2002)       compared       top

Mercedes SL500 at The Hideaway Golf Club, La Quinta, California. bigger or full-resolution.

The SL500 was an instant timeless classic, among the world's most beautiful, expensive, practical and respected cars of all time.

The SL500 cost the equivalent of over a quarter-million dollars when it came out in 1989 ($110,000 in 1989 was the same as $277,500 in 2024!) and wowed the world with the first one-button automated electric soft top. No longer did we have to undo two latches on left and right before putting the top down; just hold the switch and 24 seconds later you're on the road.

The ///     M850i looks pretty much like every other current BMW, while the SL500, one of Mercedes' proudest designs, has always commanded respect everywhere.

I had a like-new collectible SL500 when I drove — and bought — this ///     M850i to replace it because this has almost twice the acceleration with the same comfy and silent ride, and with far sharper and faster handing, all while using a little less gas. The ////     M850i also has all of today's latest safety, entertainment and convenience features. The SL500 has an optional CD changer, stability control was usually optional, and that was it.

I loved my SL500, but driving this ///     M850i was like getting sucked into an alien spaceship with its other-worldly capabilities. This ///     M850i has a much quieter ride with the top up, too!

I'm only six feet (183cm) tall, and the SL500 barely had enough legroom with the seat all the way back. Also my big American size-14 feet often would catch on the bottom of the SL500's dashboard, while I fit just fine in the ///     M850i with room to spare.

SL500 is a thirty-year-older design. The SL500 came out in 1989 in Germany, and this ///     M850i came out in 2019, so it's hard to compare. Both are immensely comfortable, quiet and fast luxury high-performance grand touring roadsters, and that's where the similarities end.

Versus the 2026 Mercedes Maybach SL680       compared       top

2026 Mercedes Maybach SL680. bigger.

Good grief, simply a poser model from the company who invented the car. It uses a flowery "680" designation historically reserved for a mighty V-12 engine, but sadly it's only a small 4-litre V-8.

It's scary that it seems to have the same retracting door handles as my 2022 S580, which often refused to pop out so I couldn't open my doors! That is not luxury.

The new Maybach has a smaller engine (4.0 litres versus 4.4 litres), is slower (4.0 seconds 0-60 MPH versus the M850i xDrive Convertible's 3.4s) and much less trunk space (only 7½ - 8½ cubic feet versus 12.4 cubic feet).

It only has two seats, not four:

2026 Mercedes Maybach SL680. bigger.

Worse, it has no room behind the front seats:

2026 Mercedes Maybach SL680. bigger.

Having no room behind the seats is not luxury. My SL500 had loads of room, which gave the cabin a much roomier feel, and more importantly gave space to put a jacket, camera, or whatever else I had with me as well as locking storage bins back there. This Maybach seems as cramped as our SLK230 or a Miata, which were fun little cars, but very cramped with just a bulkhead right behind the seats - like a two-door pickup truck!

The SL680 is also 6 inches shorter than the M850i convertible. So is the SL680 supposed to be luxury or sporty?

The SL680 lacks buttons, and instead crams everything into a touch screen. We had the same problem with our 2022 S580, which took too many taps with our eyes off the road to try to find anything, while on the M850i, everything like seat heaters, radio and function presets all have their own dedicated buttons.

I'll chalk the SL680 up to being a "Gram" car: one my neighbors buy to show off on Instagram, and then sell it in a year when they get tired of it. I don't see where the SL680 offers much in the way of luxury or anything to give more joy of driving than the M850i when it comes down to actually owning one of these. If you own and drive this, luxury needs to run much deeper than fancy finishes and matching luggage.

Versus Aston Martin       compared       top

I checked out Aston Martin when my friends confirmed, that like LEICA, Aston is still an authentic, independent company, like BMW and Mercedes. It's not like other marques that were sold off to others years ago and are simply sub-brands of larger companies, like Rolls-Royce (owned by BMW), Bentley (owned by Volkswagen), Ferrari (owned by Stellantis, maker of Dodge and Jeep) or Land Rover (owned by who knows today).

Aston Martin's pitch is that they're hand-made and offer loads of different exterior color and interior trim options. The salesman's pitch starts with how some poor lady needs to apply 18 coats of porcelain to the ASTON MARTIN wing logo on the hood and how many thousands of stitches it took to embroider ASTON MARTIN into the seats. Aston is for people who want innumerable bespoke color and interior style options.

Otherwise they cost three times as much for the inefficiency of being custom hand-made to order, and being such low production from a small company they lack many of the technical advances we take for granted like CarPlay, and if you find one with CarPlay, it's probably going to need a cord. Remember those days? You will with an Aston Martin.

The sad part is that even with the "bespoke" hand-made leather and interior options, the cockpit feels just as cheap and plasticy as anything else; there are too many black plastic surfaces just like a Honda. Personally I find the seats of my///     M850ix more comfortable and more adjustable than anything I've found in an Aston Martin, but we're all shaped differently.

Aston Martins are what we call a "Veblan Good," named after the economist who discovered that the demand for this class of goods goes up as price goes up, opposite from normal things. People buy Aston Martins precisely because they are more expensive and want to make themselves look more successful by owning them, rather than any intrinsic value of the product other than having others know how much you paid for them.

I also wanted to see Aston as I've seen some with truly breathtaking interiors, but sadly I didn't see any or couldn't order any. For the most part they feel the same as everything else. It's like an art gallery where they feed you wine, cheese and champagne at an opening and blow smoke about how lofty are the artists — but when you wake up the next morning without the gallery or dealer aura, it's just another car. My 1997 Mercedes SL500 has an all leather, wood & metal interior, while the new Astons (and modern Mercedes, AMGs and Maybachs) are mostly plastic — boo! My iPhone 16 Pro Max is much better made of all glass, stainless and titanium, far better than an Aston Martin.

A serious oversight is also that there are no neck warmers. Mercedes and BMW offer "AIRSCARF" to keep your neck and especially your ears warm with the top down, but you can't get these on Aston Martin.

Massage seats? No way.

Cooled cup holders? No way.

Rear-wheel steering for tighter turning and better handling? No way.

The trunks are tiny in comparison. The door handles require two actions to open: first press to make the handle pop out, then grab the handle. Geeze, I just want to grab the handle in the first place.

Worst of all is that while Aston Martins feign high performance and they cost as much as a supercar, even their top $500,000, 12-cylinder 835 hp 2025 Vanquish Volente takes 3.4 seconds to do 0-60: only a tenth quicker than my /// M850i! How can this be? Simple: Aston-Martins are still only rear-wheel drive; they just can't connect this much power to the road as the all-wheel drive BMWs, Audis and Porsches can.

I had to laugh quietly to myself when I noticed the air vents in the hood of a 5.2 Litre V12 2023 DBS Volante left delicate non-weatherproofed electrical connectors at the top of the engine open to the elements — or even prying fingers! Not that I'd drive a convertible in the rain, but this can't possibly help with reliability if the car ever leaves the garage. Its turbo V12 makes 715 hp, but with only rear-wheel drive it takes 3.6s 0-60, the same or slower than the /// M850i — and it still doesn't have CarPlay, adaptive cruise control or rear-wheel steering which I take for granted on my BMWs!

Even the V12s seem to use the same ZF 8-speed conventional torque-converter automatic transmission as my /// M850i x-Drive Convertible, not a PDK as a true sports car should have.

Oil changes are $3,000 — at an independent shop!

Versus the Porsche Panamera Turbo P971       compared       top

My Porsche Panamera Turbo P971 has essentially the same drivetrain, handling, performance and brakes as my /// M850ix Convertible, which is why I'm so glad I found the /// M850i, because to me, having the top down is everything.

The Porsche Panamera Turbo P971 is an absolutely amazing vehicle with huge cargo capacity as well as unbeatable performance, but who cares if the top doesn't go down?

Honestly, I've owned both and they drive the same. They both have smooth BiTurbo 4.0 L (Porsche) or 4.4 L (BMW) power plants with north of 500 HP and smooth 8-speed transmissions coupled to all-wheel drive. My Porsche Panamera Turbo P971 also has rear-wheel steering, but it was an option rather than being standard with my 850. The Panamera has full-size rear seats; the Panamera is almost identical to the 4-door coupe version of the 8-series and sadly the Porsche Panamera Turbo P971 doesn't come as a 2-door coupe or convertible as does the 8 series.

The biggest difference is the PDK double-clutch transmission of the Porsche versus a torque-converter automatic in the BMW. The PDK shifts a few milliseconds faster if you're drag racing. The PDK can have a rough 1-2 shifts and otherwise the PDK is marvelously smooth. The BMW is always smooth regardless, and both drive the same otherwise. Each downshifts instantly if you need it and neither has any turbo lag.

Both are very low to the ground, making them more agile and fun to drive — but difficult for the less agile to enter and exit. These aren't rebadged sedans like an M3.

The Porsche has only wired CarPlay and no wireless charging, while the BMW is entirely wireless. Both have similar touch screens. Apparently the BMW's wireless CarPlay and wireless charging are the most important things to many people. The BMW is also far more advanced electronically, with a far superior app and GPS car-finding and remote unlocking and card-keys to replace conventional keys.

The Porsche costs a lot more, with a $183,000 sticker price versus the BMW's $126,000. I see and feel no difference in performance, handling or quality of materials. Both have his and her fan dual speed climate controls, all-leather trim, leather doors, leather dashboards, leather center consoles and everything. Both have solid-alloy inside door pulls. The Panamera Turbo has an alcantara (fake suede) headliner, while this BMW is a convertible!

This BMW is a much better buy when you trust your own honest evaluations versus than reading too many car magazines.

Versus other Porsches       compared       top

I don't know that any Porsche convertible has ear- and neck- warmers.

Porsches are wonderful, but their Adaptive Cruise Controls aren't smart enough to restart when traffic starts moving again. Unlike my BMW, I have to hit the RESUME button every time I want my Porsche to start going again.

A core incompetency of Porsche is that none of their sun visors extend or pull out. Therefore heading north late in the afternoon you can't stop the sun from shining in your eyes from the left.

Porsche CarPlay screens are tiny.

Versus the Ford GT40 and GT       compared       top

Acceleration wise, the //     M850ix is much faster than the original 1960s GT40 supercar.

This super practical and comfy //     M850ix is just about as fast and powerful as the 2005~2006 Ford GT supercar.

The supercharged V8 Ford GT has similar power (550 HP only at 6,500 RPM versus 523 HP from 5,500 to 6000 RPM and 500 lb-ft of torque only at 4,500 RPM versus the M850i's 523 lb-ft of torque in a huge band from 1,800 to 4,600 RPM).

User's Guide       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

Do You Have Active (Adaptive) Cruise Control?

The window sticker will show option ZDY, 5AU Active Driving Assistant Pro. It also may show 5AR Extended Traffic Jam Assistant, which adds Level-2 self driving in freeway traffic below 40 MPH.

Both of these systems will maintain a safe, adjustable distance behind other traffic if it's slower than your set cruise speed. Additionally, with the 5AR Extended Traffic Jam Assistant (Level-2 self driving) option, it will steer and start and stop with the traffic for as long as a traffic jam continues. It's very smart and polite, and mine expertly lets others change lanes in front of me with no problems if traffic merges. Bravo!

Both of these options will have a RADAR antenna in the center of the lower grille, and more subtly a 3-D stereoscopic camera system just above the rearview mirror:

Active Cruise RADAR Antenna & Stereoscopic Camera System. bigger.

The stereoscopic camera system is a horizontal array of three tiny cameras which can see depth using AI just like our own minds. The more basic M8 below lacks Active Cruise Control. It has only one simple camera peeking out through a smaller trapezoidal window, and of course no RADAR antenna:

A BMW M8 Without Active Cruise: NO Radar Antenna and NO 3D AI Camera System. bigger.

Also look for the subtly different controls on the steering wheel. Ignore the cosmetics of what's silver or not; what matters is that the car with Active Cruise Control has distance controls on the sides of the rocker lever:

Activating Cruise Control

Tap the lower center button in either of the pictures above to activate cruise control.

When tapped it activates cruise control and it sets it to your current speed.

Active Cruise Control (if you have it)

Active cruise control will slow your car and stop and start to match the traffic around you if it's moving more slowly than the speed you've set.

If not already active, tap MODE to get you between the regular cruise control and Active Cruise Control.

Even if traffic comes to a complete stop for an hour, as soon as it starts to move, so will your BMW without you having to tap anything. This is much better than Mercedes and Porsche, whose adaptive cruise controls require you to tap something every time traffic starts to move again.

Activating Self-Driving Mode (if you have it)

Only the car and its AI can offer you the self-driving option if you're stuck in freeway traffic at under 40 MPH. You can't manually engage it; if the car's AI determines that it's safe, then and only then it will offer to take control.

When offered, tap MODE to select it, and now your car will start, stop and steer all by itself. You don't even need to touch the steering wheel!

The only thing you need to do is look at the road ahead about once a minute, and you're good.

Once you go faster than 40 MPH you need to put your hands back on the wheel because it reverts back to active cruise control and you have to steer again. You'll get beeped if you don't put your hands back if you're not paying attention when traffic breaks.

HINT: When traffic breaks; put your hands back on the wheel before traffic starts moving above 40 MPH and you won't get beeped.

SPORT, COMFORT & ECO PRO Driving Modes

COMFORT is default every time you light up. Works great.

ECO PRO is similar, with the biggest change being that the transmission will go into neutral when you let off the accelerator rather than engine brake.

Use this mode on freeway drives, where I've gotten 29 MPG with the top up at average speeds of 72 MPH. I haven't seen it save any fuel driving locally.

Sometimes it seems it won't let the air conditioner make as much cold air, and it seems to love higher gears (lower RPMs) while at a constant speed.

The only gotcha with ECO PRO is that it replaces the tachometer display with a miles-per-gallon display, which drives me nuts.

SPORT mode tightens up the suspension and alters the throttle curve so it feels like you're giving it more gas than you are.

I never use it on normal drives, but I will use it when chasing the other nuts in their little M2s, M3s and M4s on club rides out on very twisty, narrow back roads. SPORT mode makes this feel like a much smaller car.

Launch Control       user's guide       top

Having owned hot cars ever since my first 1970 GTO convertible 455 CID HO 4-speed I got right out of college in 1984, I've never found this silliness particularly novel — but I could have used it back in olden days when my new 1986 Ford Mustang GT with a special-order performance axle ratio would spin the tires and not connect with the road unless I was very talented with how I released the clutch and applied the gas. I never even bothered to try it in my Porsche Panamera Turbo Typ. 971, even on a first test drive where the Porsche salesman abetted me.

This said, I believe the way to get Launch Control in the M850i is to:

1.) Stop.

2.) Be sure the wheels are pointed forward.

3.) Tap SPORT mode (button below and left of the shifter).

4.) Tap the traction control button above and left of the shifter to deactivate traction control (actually it's optimizing it for launch; this is a critical part of the acceleration equation).

5.) Move the shifter to the left to the S (sport shifting) position.

6.) Right before you're ready to move out, use you left foot to stand on the brake pedal to keep the car stopped, and then stand on the throttle (you should see a flag light up on the dash as the engine revs up), and then

7.) Release the brake and off you go.

HINT: Don't keep both pedals pressed for more than 3 seconds because your transmission is heating up from absorbing the full power of the engine while you're doing this.

HINT: Because your transmission is now super hot from having absorb all this power before you took off, you'll have to wait about 5 minutes for it to cool down before you can engage in this foolishness again.

Auto High Beams       user's guide       top

Tap the lower left-side button on the left-side of the turn-signal stalk.

You'll see a green headlight icon with an "A" on the left of the gauge cluster.

Now the high beams will turn on and off as needed.

If you push or tap the stalk forwards to force high beams manually, you deactivate the automatic control, but here's a hint: instead of pulling the stalk towards you to deactivate the high beams manually, tap the lower right button again to put it back into automatic high beam mode, which turns off the high beams and returns you to Automatic mode!

Auto Locking & Unlocking       user's guide       top

It's easy to set the M850 to unlock as you get within a few feet, and likewise to lock automatically when you walk away. That's right; you'll hear it unlock and lock all by itself. Cool.

This works great, but if you often walk past your car without taking it for a ride, the poor M850 gets excited, and if you're like me, its mirrors fold out and then back in again — again and again every time you walk by.

Worrying I'd wear out my mirrors from all the times I go out to the garage for other things, it's works just as easily if I set Auto Lock (only) and not Auto Unlock, so if I walk by it doesn't just open — and then close.

Setting Auto Lock (only) means it still unlocks and locks automatically since it also automatically unlocks as soon as you touch the door handle; just that it doesn't unlock when you just walk past.

Remote Camera       user's guide       top

With the 360º  3D Surround View "Eye of God" camera system (option code ZX3 as part of the ZDA Driving Assistance Package), the BMW app offers a remote 3D view that lets you grab a 3D surround VR-style still image to see your car's surroundings — from anyplace on earth! This lets you see where it's parked, what's around it and who's parked next to you.

You get this in the app under Remote Services > Remote Camera > Remote 3D View > UPDATE VIEW.

Once you say OK to letting it fold out the mirrors, stay on that page a minute or two until it collects al the images from all the cameras around the car and sends them to you. You can save them as four fisheye images, or you also can move around them as composited and remapped into a 3D view.

HINT: Don't leave the screen while it's capturing images; otherwise it will stop. As of 2026 is seems the app is improved and I can leave the app while it collects images.

HINT: These images appear to be archived on your phone, not at BMW's servers, so if you delete the app, you also delete your saved images.

Day-of-the-Week Display       user's guide       top

This is at the analog clock to display at the Home Screen.

Otherwise it's almost impossible to have it show the day of the week, unless of course you use CarPlay.

"Since Refueling" Trip Computer       user's guide       top

This resets when it detects about 3 gallons or more have been added to the tank.

It doesn't reset simply by opening the fuel door.

Reorganizing Your CarPlay Screen       user's guide       top

CarPlay Screen, BMW 850i xDrive Convertible (iDrive 7). bigger.

You can't touch and drag icons and apps on your car's screen, oddly you have to rearrange them in your iPhone:

iPhone 16 Pro Max/iOS 18 SETTINGS screen. bigger.

This works the same in iOS 26 in 2026. My graphics are from iOS 18 in 2025, and it has been the same for years.

The secret is to go to iPhone Settings > General > CarPlay > (select your car) > Customize!

With more than one car you can (and have to) set them separately for each car.

It's weird because you're moving them up and down a one-dimensional list on your phone which has no relation to how they look on screen. Just deal with it, and you'll love having your apps where you want them on your CarPlay screen.

Restoring CarPlay with iOS 17 and iOS 18       user's guide       top

Don't buy a new car; I have Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes brand-new and used of various vintages, and in all of them, CarPlay will occasionally fail to connect.

It all comes down the the fact that Bluetooth was originally designed for keyboards and mice, and some times — usually when you need it most — it just won't connect. I have had these problems with all my brand-new and used cars with all my iPhones; don't think that replacing anything will make it any more reliable.

About once a year I lose my CarPlay connection, and resetting and restarting and deleting and attempting to reconnect from my iPhones Settings > Bluetooth screen gets me nowhere. This process restored it both times.

To fix CarPlay in a BMW (iDrive 7):

1.) Turn off the iPhone's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections in the iPhone's Control Center (swipe down from the top right).

2.) Start the engine.

3.) Press and hold the radio power/mute ⏻ button inside the volume control knob on the center console below the air conditioning controls for 70 seconds (exactly). The screen turns on and off a few times.

4.) Go to the BMW's Apps by pressing the 🌐 globe icon button directly above the huge iDrive knob on the center console, press the OPTION button on the lower right of the huge iDrive knob, and select and click "Update Apps and Services." It says it's updating, and about 15 seconds later it's done. Yes!

5.) Turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth back on in the iPhone's Control Center (drag down from the top right).

6.) Here's the critical part: DON'T try to reconnect with the iPhone at Settings > Bluetooth. Instead, get the BMW to its pairing screen and select CarPlay. Even easier, tap the Mic button on the steering wheel as a shortcut to the carplay setup screen.

7.) In the iPhone, select Settings > General > CarPlay (instead of Bluetooth) and look for your BMW under "others" at the bottom and take it from there.

The trick is going to Settings > General > CarPlay instead of Settings > Bluetooth.

Recommendations       top

Introduction   New   Good   Bad   Missing

Sticker   Specifications   Performance

Compared   User's Guide   Recommendations

Get one, I did! It's the first car I've bought for myself in 20 years and love it to death. It's a 30-year-newer design than my 1997 Mercedes SL500 and has little in common other than being big, fast and comfortable.

Join the BMW CCA. Even if you don't love the magazines and club events, often dealers offer discounts on service and new- and CPO-cars that more than pay for your membership each year.

This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use any of these links to approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.

Thanks for helping me help you!

Ken.

© Ken Rockwell. All rights reserved. Tous droits réservés. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Alla rättigheter förbehållna. Toate drepturile rezervate. Niciun vampir nu a fost implicat în crearea acestei lucrări. Doe knows! Omnia jura reservata. Ken Rockwell® is a registered trademark.

Help Me Help You       top

I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem.

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you find this page as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

As this page is copyrighted and formally registered, it is unlawful to make copies, especially in the form of printouts for personal use. If you wish to make a printout for personal use, you are granted one-time permission only if you PayPal me $5.00 per printout or part thereof. Thank you!

1 : $9.99 USD - monthly 2 : $4.99 USD - monthly 3 : $2.99 USD - monthly 4 : $1.99 USD - monthly 5 : $0.99 USD - monthly 6 : $19.99 USD - monthly

Ken.

Home Donate New Search Gallery Reviews How‑To Books Links Workshops About Contact

06 Mar 2026 add Blackwing, 02 Feb 2026 add new iOS 26 CarPlay pixel sizes, 04 Dec 2025 clarify CarPlay editing, 16 Sep 2025 clarify ACC, 05 Aug 2025 add pic of right rear wheel, 21 July 2025 add car charging pic, 30 Jun 2025 add 12Cilindri, 01 May 2025 add Sticker anchors. 25 Apr 2025 add xDrive titles, 15 Apr 2025 add Aston & Porsche compare, 02 Apr 2025 add pix of cruise controls, 08 Jan 2025 clarify CarPlay recovery & add RSF pic, 04 Nov 2024 add interior alarm, 19 Aug 2024 ad build sheet, 16 Aug 2024 add MyRadar, 30 July 2024 add side view, 09 July 2024 add 5DSR interior shot, 22 Jun 2024, 14 May 2024 rear photo, 04 Apr 2024, Feb 2024, 31 Oct 2023 brakes & GDO, 05 Oct 2023 CarPlay, 03 Oct 2023, 12 Aug 2023 added GT, 19 July 2023 added comparisons, 03-05, 11, 15, 22 June 2023

see also C&D April 2019 for a good overview

See also C & D for the 2026 model, which is unchanged from 2019 except for a slightly bigger and otherwide identical iDrive screen. They got 3.4s 0-60 from an 850i convertible; BMW tends to under-rate this 850 at 3.9s to make the M8 look more special than it is.