Was recently ecstatic to purchase my 6th consecutive BMW, a new 2011 X5. Unfortunately the iPod connection had a defect - I thought no big deal could get fixed. However, after over a year of trying to get it fixed, official BMW response is - yes we confirmed your BMW is defective, but we can't fix it so live with it.
I've taken it to 3 dealers now on 4 occasions, and it has spend over 2 weeks having this issue diagnosed. All 4 times it was taken in, dealer tech told me they saw this issue and have never seen it before and didn't know how to handle - and said contact customer service. When I called BMW customer service they just said go to my dealer to resolve. One dealer finally called Germany to speak to high level and response was - no, it should not do that, it is a defect, customer will have to live with the defect because we don't think it can be fixed. Then I was told customer service would do nothing else like offer a rebate towards another car or anything.
I attached a video showing problem (you can see first/last 20 seconds for short version). Basically, you go through ordeal of selecting artist/album whatever, and that takes a minute. And every time you start car up, the list resets (thus going back to "all songs" instead of current song). It is beyond annoying as it renders using iPod useless.
Probably going to sell the car and go with a Lexus problem is so annoying. Thought I was a BMW driver for life, but when you're told on car with $60k+ sticker to "live with it" when it has a major defect, I was pretty upset to say the least. Sorry for venting but felt compelled, this issue is so annoying - anybody that knows what a pain it is to select artist/album ext sure can relate.