BMW introduces new heated seat subscription in UK

[therealhantsram]

You will now have to pay £15 a month to use the seat heaters you already bought! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

Dozens of highly educated, highly paid people would have had meetings galore before signing off on this outrage. Every single one of them should be fired.

Pure. Corporate. Greed.

 

[Alph]

I assume they already have to pay to use indicators?

[Mucker1884]

10 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

You will now have to pay £15 a month to use the seat heaters you already bought! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

 

 

Not according to your link?  ?‍♂️

Spec it in at purchase, and it's all yours, just like all the other manufacturers.

 

The subscription option is either to cover you changing your mind after not initially spec'ing it, or if you buy second hand, and it's not already available.  Electric seats as an add on, effectively.  Gotta be better than no option at all?

 

Quote

The manufacturer told the BBC that "where heated seats, or any feature available in the ConnectedDrive store have been purchased when a customer vehicle is ordered, no subsequent subscription or payment is necessary".

But the company argues that the ability to add new features can be helpful for owners who change their minds after purchase.

And it is particularly useful, BMW wrote, for second-hand car owners, "as they now have the opportunity to add features the original owner did not choose".

 

[TigerTedd]

Weird. So you buy a top of the range car. You own all the hardware, but maybe you save yourself £200 by not turning the heated steering wheel on. But bmw still have to pay to install the heated steering wheel.

I suppose if you weren’t fussed about the steering wheel, and you going to bug the cheaper, lower spec model anyway, then it doesn’t really matter to the consumer. Seems a bit of a waste from bmw then to go to the expense of installing kit that may never be used. But I guess they’re gambling on the fact that people will change their minds. 

Possibly not a bad thing to pay £30 just to have the steering wheel during the 3 months of winter, as apposed to £200 up front. You’d have to use them for 20 months, that’s nearly 7 winters, to make it worth paying up front. 

so I suppose for seasonal features like that, it could make some sort of sense. But it is a bit odd. Doesn’t seem like a problem that needed fixing. I wouldn’t call it corporate greed though. BMW could potentially end up losing money from it, if not enough people take them up on the offer. They’ve just installed a bunch of redundant kit the customer hasn’t paid for on the off chance that they might pay for it later. 

[Mucker1884]

33 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

Weird. So you buy a top of the range car. You own all the hardware, but maybe you save yourself £200 by not turning the heated steering wheel on. But bmw still have to pay to install the heated steering wheel.

I suppose if you weren’t fussed about the steering wheel, and you going to bug the cheaper, lower spec model anyway, then it doesn’t really matter to the consumer. Seems a bit of a waste from bmw then to go to the expense of installing kit that may never be used. But I guess they’re gambling on the fact that people will change their minds. 

Possibly not a bad thing to pay £30 just to have the steering wheel during the 3 months of winter, as apposed to £200 up front. You’d have to use them for 20 months, that’s nearly 7 winters, to make it worth paying up front. 

so I suppose for seasonal features like that, it could make some sort of sense. But it is a bit odd. Doesn’t seem like a problem that needed fixing. I wouldn’t call it corporate greed though. BMW could potentially end up losing money from it, if not enough people take them up on the offer. They’ve just installed a bunch of redundant kit the customer hasn’t paid for on the off chance that they might pay for it later. 

I'd agree in principle, but I guess like most things, they could hide the costs (to them) of the hardware/installation etc within the basic purchase price.

An upgrade of wheels is listed.  Same for Pano roof, and xenon lights etc.  I guess the gubbings for heated seats will be there, and paid for one way or another, just not as a listed add-on?

EG:
The stated purchase price is fully inclusive of 4 bog standard wheels, wipers to front screen, some paint, a light in each corner, a bit of carpet, some door pockets, handles for each door, and all the bits required to switch on heated seats ALL AT NO EXTRA COST!  
(Followed by a whole raft of these little fellas... ******* )     

?

[TigerTedd]

14 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

I'd agree in principle, but I guess like most things, they could hide the costs (to them) of the hardware/installation etc within the basic purchase price.

An upgrade of wheels is listed.  Same for Pano roof, and xenon lights etc.  I guess the gubbings for heated seats will be there, and paid for one way or another, just not as a listed add-on?

EG:
The stated purchase price is fully inclusive of 4 bog standard wheels, wipers to front screen, some paint, a light in each corner, a bit of carpet, some door pockets, handles for each door, and all the bits required to switch on heated seats ALL AT NO EXTRA COST!  
(Followed by a whole raft of these little fellas... ******* )     

?

Actually, I’ve just remembered I essentially pay £50 a month for a panoramic roof. I pay monthly for my car on a pcp scheme, and opted to pay an extra £50 a month for the upgraded package with the panoramic roof.

What’s really happening is that it costs about £600 extra as an upgrade, and that’s split over the contract to be about £50 a month.

at the time I thought, £600 seems a lot for a bit of glass in the roof. I’m sure I could just hug it and get some guy to do it for a couple of hundred quid.

a lot of these things a one off payment doesn’t seem too bad, I’d probably pay £200 for a heated steering wheel (when added to the over all cost of a £30k+ car it doesn’t seem like such a bitter pill to swallow), but when you phrase it as £10 a month it seems a lot, there’s a lot more I’d rather pay £10 a month for. But then you work it out that that’s 7 winters worth of use before it becomes worth paying up front, then it makes you realise that £200 really is a big waste of money, the monthly option, as extortionate as it seems, could actually be more economical.

do I get £50 worth of use out of my panarabista roof each month? Of course not. What else could I get for £50 a month? Loads of stuff. But at the time the overall monthly cost was something I felt I could afford and I wanted a panoramic roof dammit, so I got one. But you can go slightly insane when you start to break things down.

I’d kind of prefer people to just charge me an amount, and not itemise me. I don’t really want to know I’m paying £300 for monogrammed mats. 

[uttoxram75]

There’s got to be some clever sod who’s worked out how to activate the extras without paying?

[i-Ram]

13 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

You will now have to pay £15 a month to use the seat heaters you already bought! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

Dozens of highly educated, highly paid people would have had meetings galore before signing off on this outrage. Every single one of them should be fired.

Pure. Corporate. Greed.

Maybe you should divert your £15p.m. to Specsavers. Might be value for money to stop you getting into unnecessary moral rages.

[Wolfie20]

40 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

There’s got to be some clever sod who’s worked out how to activate the extras without paying?

    Boycie?

[BaaLocks]

10 hours ago, Alpha said:

I assume they already have to pay to use indicators?

Which might explain why they don't....

[Norman]

7 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Which might explain why they don't....

Please don't explain the joke. 

[Boycie]

1 hour ago, uttoxram75 said:

There’s got to be some clever sod who’s worked out how to activate the extras without paying?

Plug in your Amazon fire stick into the auxiliary. ?

[AndyinLiverpool]

19 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

You will now have to pay £15 a month to use the seat heaters you already bought! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

Dozens of highly educated, highly paid people would have had meetings galore before signing off on this outrage. Every single one of them should be fired.

Pure. Corporate. Greed.

 

Is this a Daily Mail thread?

[PistoldPete]

I never knew that heated steering wheels was a thing. Isn’t it cheaper to wear gloves? 

[AndyinLiverpool]

39 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

I never knew that heated steering wheels was a thing. Isn’t it cheaper to wear gloves? 

It's a thing for BMW drivers apparently. It might be what stops them from driving properly.

[Mucker1884]

43 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

I never knew that heated steering wheels was a thing. Isn’t it cheaper to wear gloves? 

Once the frost has cleared from the windows, people will look in when sat at the lights.  Glove wearers will get pointed at, and laughed at, whereas BMW drivers can make themselves look hard (being gloveless), and maintain both their tough exterior image and dignity throughout, thus avoiding said pointing and laughi... oh what the hell... who am I kidding!   

[AndyinLiverpool]

Is the ego massager extra?

[Rev]

It's the way the entire car industry is moving, VW admitted a year ago they were looking at add on subscriptions to provide profits, not selling cars themselves. 

10 years time, you'll drive your electric car away from the dealership, and everything will be locked, from extra battery range to top speed, from basic to luxury.  

It'll all be there on the car, ready for the over the air update to unlock it.

It's already a thing on the car I currently own, I can access the store and download extras such as   Internet radio, Apple and Android Carplay, a tracker, mobile car keys to allow someone else keyless access, etc etc. I'm coming up to 3 years ownership, and it'll be interesting to see which things I currently get included in the purchase price become optional extras, like real time route planning. 

This could be beneficial tech, why pay for something you'd rarely use up front, if you can rent it as and when needed?  For example, most of my driving is low speed city driving, so do I really need 300+ bhp? 

Not really, a quarter of that would do the same job in 90% of circumstances, but say I was setting off on a long journey, or enjoying a track day, the option to only pay for the power when needed, rather than upfront, would be welcome.

[JoetheRam]

The car as an expression of freedom is essentially dead.

Or at least is for the working man.

Web updates, built in obsolescence, speed limiters, ridiculous fuel prices, ridiculous energy prices, speed bumps everywhere, potholes everywhere, cameras everywhere...

It's over.

 

 

[TigerTedd]

2 hours ago, JoetheRam said:

The car as an expression of freedom is essentially dead.

Or at least is for the working man.

Web updates, built in obsolescence, speed limiters, ridiculous fuel prices, ridiculous energy prices, speed bumps everywhere, potholes everywhere, cameras everywhere...

It's over.

 

 

Cars aren’t that though. They’re a means to get from a to b. The irony is, what we see now as cars will become an expression of freedom. 

modes of transport will eventually become autonomous clones. No one will own a car. We’ll just have driverless taxis everywhere.

so what you will own will be the shell of a 1996 vw golf or similar, which you’ll do up, and paint it how you want, and you probably won’t go anywhere in it, they probably won’t sell the fuel, but it’ll look cool. And that will be your self expression.