BMW Australia has confirmed its entire range will be back to usual specification within the coming months, after component shortages forced the brand to de-spec features from certain models last year.
Speaking with CarExpert at the recent launch of the all-new 7 Series and i7 limousines, head of product and market planning for BMW Australia, Brendan Michel, said the changes have started coming online since late last year, with some models returning to normal specification by the second quarter of 2023.
“It’s been rectified recently,” Mr Michel said, “towards the end of last year, things started to free up.”
“Two key things that were missing from our cars; number one was a head-up display, and that’s something we had standard on all of our cars beforehand. That’s coming back very early this year, and there’s only one or two variants where we’ll get it by quarter two.”
BMW X3
“The other one was active cruise control as part of Driving Assistant Professional. That started to come back to all of our models since late last year.”
Models like the facelifted BMW X3 and X4 launched back in 2021 with the bulk of the range missing the full assistance suite – dubbed Driving Assistant Professional – due to component shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a similar story for models like the 2 Series Coupe, which went without a standard head-up display for similar reasons.
BMW isn’t alone either. Many brands were forced to adjust specification or fight lengthy wait times on new vehicles due to component shortages, and some are still in that boat.
BMW 2 Series Coupe
Volkswagen, for example, has closed orders for the Golf Hatch for the entire first quarter of 2023 as the chip shortage currently has new builds being produced without a reversing camera. A similar issue affects the related Caddy van.
Renault, amongst other brands, has also been forced to take out features in its Captur and Arkana SUVs – including electric folding side mirrors and premium sound systems– as a result of the component shortages.
Have you been waiting for missing features to come back before buying a BMW?
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