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BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

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71–80 of 351 posts

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#71
post #2

BMW jerks deserve to be shamed. :P This claim is disputed.

It would be interesting to see stats on aggressive driving by brand. My guess is that BMW drivers would be well near the most aggressive on the list.

The results almost certainly vary by region (because regional traffic, weather and economic conditions impact who buys what).

Measuring aggressiveness is going to be a measurement of outliers. For everyone weaving through traffic in their BMW without turn signals there's a gray hair putting along. For every Tacoma clogging up the left lane there's a Prius taxi hauling ass to the next fare. I don't think it's a very informative thing to try to measure.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#72
post #38

Last time I brought a used car ( from a dealership) , and was immediately inundated with dozens of extended warranty sales calls. I can't imagine this will be anything positive. Give it a decade and other advertisers will open the gate. File for divorce and dating ads will spam you at an intersection.

I really wish personalized ads were criminalized. Lets go back to contextual (by location of ad) and general ads. The stalker big brother ad industry needs to be stopped.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#73
post #57

I used to really like BMWs but they have lost their way in my opinion. Front wheel drive models, charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay, that 4-series grill, increasingly horrific customer service at dealers and foregoing their position as the market leader in handling and dynamics really rub me up the wrong way.

Exactly, they’ve gone for luxury but not as well as MB or Audi who are now eating their lunch. To say nothing of Porsche taking the sportscar and sporty SUV market profits. CarPlay subscription is just offensive.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#74
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your country is moving up the food chain. In my eastern-European country it seems like every third car is an old BMW.

Exactly - BMW is the has-been German brand, that you can buy as a 10-20 year old import. It holds no cachet and is harder to maintain and less fuel efficient than other brands with similar features. Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals. Functionally though - Teslas are too big…

kids are also a pretty good indication. if for some reason my model 3 is not parked where it's usually parked, the kids of the neighbourhood come over and ask where the Tesla is. i'm not joking. nobody ever cared where my previous bmw mini, vw golf or land rover parked.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#75

I remember reading an interview with BMW designer that the obnoxiously huge front grills are a nod to the Chinese customers. Chinese customers wanted the drivers in front of them to feel intimidated, as if the car and driver behind wanted to eat them. Other premium brands like Lexus followed with this trend.

I'm no fan of the design, but BMW has considered their "kidney grille" to be an iconic design element since 1933. https://www.bmw.com/en/design/the-bmw-kidney-grille-through-...

In general, sentences of the form "(I heard from (?P.* ) that )?(?P.* ) is (?P.* )" should be treated with a great deal of suspicion.

(Extra whitespace insertion to bypass HN formatting)

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#76
post #38

Last time I brought a used car ( from a dealership) , and was immediately inundated with dozens of extended warranty sales calls. I can't imagine this will be anything positive. Give it a decade and other advertisers will open the gate. File for divorce and dating ads will spam you at an intersection.

While it might be the dealership, I get spam-type calls asking me to extend my car's warranty constantly... and they have no idea what car I own. (Turns out they didn't want to give my wife's '99 Saturn a warranty after all!)

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#77
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the plate itself is PII, like "158.32.44.25" isn't PII. Tying that to a person is what's PII.

A personal IP address is PII. The same for a license plate. At least under GDPR.

In the UK private companies are allowed to scan licence plates though, literally every single supermarket car park has AMPR cameras which record when you shop there. There's usually a plaque somewhere that says "by entering this carpark you allow us to use information about you".

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#78
post #57

I used to really like BMWs but they have lost their way in my opinion. Front wheel drive models, charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay, that 4-series grill, increasingly horrific customer service at dealers and foregoing their position as the market leader in handling and dynamics really rub me up the wrong way.

M2cs or M5c are still by far the best cars in their class. While I'm not a fan of BMW's new design language (think the 4-series, or the iX), nor their move to subscription-based features, it's still my go-to brand. Other (non-exotic) brands are either downsizing (2.0 engine in the new C63 AMG for gods sake) or going fully electric – and I like my v8 rumble in the morning.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#79
Not sure why BMW gets so much negativity. The past models of BMW were really boring. The design wasn't extraordinary that it could compete with Audi or Mercedes.

But the new design of the iX and 4er models are very beautiful. I must say the new grills really appeal to me.

It seems that the new design causes a similar reaction as Mercedes SUV design of GLE and GLC (Coupe). Mercedes took a new approach and got a lot of negative comments. But ultimately they set a new trend and their SUV's were a huge success.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#80
post #57

I used to really like BMWs but they have lost their way in my opinion. Front wheel drive models, charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay, that 4-series grill, increasingly horrific customer service at dealers and foregoing their position as the market leader in handling and dynamics really rub me up the wrong way.

> charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay

Well that's a scam if there ever was one. Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car? Might as well buy an iPad and solder it over BMW's control panel.

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