BMW finds itself in the hot seat over £150 annual fee to use built-in feature

BMW has come in for stinging criticism after it emerged customers are obliged to pay extra to use features already built into their cars.

An investigation by The Verge revealed BMW has put a number of its features behind a paywall, including the use of heated seats and adaptive suspension, that requires you to sign up to a monthly or annual subscription in which to activate them.

While paying extra for non-standard features is nothing new, the cost of doing so at the time of purchase covers the expense of building the hardware into your model. However, in this instance, the hardware would need to already be installed and therefore can only be made available once you have subscribed on BMW’s ConnectedDrive store.

Of course, now would be a good time to point out that Visordown is a motorcycle website and we are of course talking about cars, but BMW does offer a sister operating system named ‘ConnectedRide’. 

While this is primarily designed to tether your motorcycle or scooter to your phone to use music, GPS and telephone more seamlessly, the ingredients are there for BMW to adopt a similar format that might see you paying extra ‘on the go’ for something you’re already carrying around.

As an example, should drivers want to use the heated seat function on their BMW, it would cost them £15 per month, or £150 a year, £250 for three years or £350 to have it available all the time.

When approached by Sky for a statement, BMW insists the feature is designed for those who find down the line they wanted a feature they didn’t specify at the time of purchase.

“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.

"The ConnectedDrive Store offers customers the opportunity to add selected features, which they did not order when the vehicle was built, at a later date.

"This can be helpful for new customers should their circumstances change after their purchase. For secondary owners, this functionality is particularly useful, as they now have the opportunity to add features the original owner did not choose.

"Customers can enable all hardware features for a one-time payment or if preferable, choose an annual or monthly subscription, depending on the feature.

"This enables drivers to experiment with a feature by purchasing a short-term trial before committing to a purchase."

Much like apps that lure you in a free format before tempting you to get a subscription to unlock more features, or airports that charge £7 just to drop off your loved ones at departures rather than have them ‘tuck and roll’ on the M11 hard shoulder (I’m looking at you Stansted…), news of BMW’s rather sneaky ‘pay-as-you-go’ features are unlikely to be met favourably a time when we are already tightening our belts in the face of rising living costs.