Orlando Sentinel's view

The first new car I test-drove for a story was a 1984 BMW 318i. Since then, it would be safe to say I’ve averaged maybe one road test a week. Actually, that’s very conservative, as for quite a few years I averaged two test-drive stories a week. But for sake of argument, let’s figure one a week for 15 years.

That’s 780 road tests, of vehicles ranging from the Yugo, to a Ferrari 360 Modena; from a Laforza (don’t ask) to a Bentley Arnage to the very first Hyundai Excel fresh off the boat from Korea.

And never, ever, has a manufacturer required that a trained representative be flown into town to show me how to drive a car.

Until now. The BMW 745i is very likely the most sophisticated car on the road, and certainly the most complex.

You want an example? Here’s an example.

The owner’s manual has four pages of instructions for the parking brake. The parking brake! It begins with “Parking Brake – The Concept.” I am not making this up.

Anyway, you engage the parking brake by pressing a button, which that activates “an electrohydraulic mechanism.” All the possibilities involved with engaging the brake manually or automatically take up maybe two pages. But two more pages detail what you should do if the system malfunctions and the parking brake stays on, which could be caused by a dead battery. Then you must disengage it using “a screwdriver handle, an emergency release tool and a 10mm open-end wrench,” all fortunately included in the tool kit, which is located in the luggage compartment lid.

That is not what a BMW representative flew to town to explain. He was here to help me through the iDrive system. This consists of an aluminum knob about the size of a triple-decker Oreo cookie mounted on the console. It is essentially a joystick that controls multiple functions, including the sound system, the navigation system, the phone, the climate – practically everything but the windshield wipers and the cruise control.

The “controller” – the aluminum Oreo joystick knob – corresponds to a screen on the dashboard, above where the stereo usually goes. To select a function, move the knob while you watch the screen. Then you slide the knob, or turn it, or pound it with your fist until it does what you want. Fortunately, there is a small pocket-sized booklet to refer to as you are driving along at, say, 70 mph or so.

In the manual, under “Control Center – The Concept:” The Control Center “has been designed to avoid the unnecessary complexity created by an extended number of switches and controls.”

Let’s just say it doesn’t work that way. The iDrive system is not remotely intuitive, is not fun, and does not eliminate complexity, but adds to it. During the 1,000 miles I put on this car, I learned the BMW iDrive system from front to back, but I still don’t like it. In fact, I met only one man familiar with it who does like it: A district manager from Mercedes, who told me that multiple prospective customers fo r the BMW 7-Series have been so turned off by iDrive that they have bought a Mercedes S-Class – a complex car, sure, but one that does not require a tutor.

Enough beating that dead horse. Otherwise, the all-new 745i is a wonderful car; comfortable, fast, safe, and profoundly handsome from the side and front, though from the rear, the trunk lid is far too tall and looks as though it’s always open an inch, and the taillights appear to be borrowed from a Plymouth.

On the road, the 745i corners like a sports car, rides like a limousine. Brakes are astoundingly good, steering precise. It’s completely quiet inside even at highway speeds. The new 4.4-liter, 325-horsepower V-8 engine and six-speed automatic transmission are a superb combination.

The interior is loaded with supple leather and odd, flat-finished pale wood trim that actually looks like wood, pores and imperfections and all. Nice.

And some of the innovations actually work as advertised. As part of a $1,000 venience Package, open the doors, and, thanks to hydraulics, they actually stop right where you leave them – you don’t have to pull the door in or push it out until it clicks into a detent, which always seems just past the point of hitting the car parked next to you.

And some of the innovations are harmless and sort of amusing. There is no key; you punch the key fob into the dashboard, then press the “start/stop” button. You shift gears by flicking a tiny lever into drive, reverse or neutral. For “park,” press another button. To manually shift gears, press a button on the steering wheel, then press another button on the steering wheel. But you can only shift down to lower gears, not up to higher gears.

But this iDrive gimmick answers a multitude of questions no one is asking. It alone is enough to keep me from buying this car, assuming some wealthy relative I have never heard of died and coincidentally left me $71,195, the sticker price.

BMW executives, stoic to the end, insist that iDrive is the wave of the future, and fully intend to implement it across the entire BMW lineup in the next three years. That would be a terrible idea, unless much is done, and soon, to make it friendlier and more relevant.