If you’ve been considering buying a BMW, then you might want to hold off a bit longer before heading to your nearest BMW dealer. Leaked information, provided exclusively to me through some of my contacts at BMW, has revealed that they’re hard at work on a new, innovative test-drive experience that you’ll only find at a BMW dealership. This new approach to offering their customers a test drive, internally nicknamed “Beemer Boomer Testing,” won’t be available nationwide until sometime next year, but I’ve heard they plan on testing it at select dealerships in the next couple of months.
Beemer Boomer Testing
According to the documents that I’ve been provided with, which I’m unwilling to reproduce here as they’d expose my contacts to retribution from their managers, the new “Beemer Boomer” approach to test-driving a vehicle is designed to provide prospective customers with a more realistic understanding of what it means to drive a BMW. Their surveys and metrics showed that while BMW was a popular brand among many drivers, theoretically, it wasn’t really capturing a lot of new, younger drivers. There’s a lot of hype out there about the, “Ultimate driving machine,” but once people took a test drive, it often felt underwhelming.
After a fair amount of internal brainstorming and testing, the problem was discovered: a simple test drive fails to capture the full BMW experience. In order to bring in new drivers, they needed to showcase everything their vehicles have to offer. A few initial attempts were made to train salespeople to provide a test-drive experience that better replicated what it means to own and drive a BMW. These proved ineffective, however, as it still failed to let drivers feel what it means to own a BMW for themselves.
A Better Driving Experience
The solution to this problem is now nearing the end of its development at BMW and will start showing up at select dealerships quite soon. They’ve already tested it at two locations and will add about half a dozen more before going widespread. Assuming these tests work well, they’ll then roll out the “Beemer Boomer” experience to every BMW dealer in the country. So what does this experience offer? I’m so glad you asked…
Essentially, it’s a setting in the car’s computer, which can be set by the dealership prior to a test drive, then turned off afterward. When selected, this does several things:
- The turn signal is completely deactivated and will not function.
- The accelerator is increased in responsiveness by about 40%.
- The brakes are decreased in responsiveness by about 22% until a vehicle is detected nearby, then they are boosted by 148% to ensure a safe stop in the last half-second before a potential collision.
- Driver collision warning will no longer alert the driver. Instead, the driver will be prompted to operate the BMW as close to any vehicle in front of it as possible.
- Stop sign detection ensures the BMW will always fail to come to a complete stop at such a sign, slowing down and rolling through the intersection instead.
- The lane-change warning and lane-change assist systems are tuned to ensure drivers only change lanes when a vehicle is nearly in the BMW’s blind spot, ensuring the approaching vehicle is cut off.
Early testing has been overwhelmingly positive, and one of the two dealerships already using this new program has revealed a huge boost in sales. According to the report I received, one salesperson said, “As soon as people realize just how fun and selfish it is to drive a BMW, they can’t wait to buy one. We’re back-ordered because people desire a vehicle that really lets them embrace how shitty they’ve always wanted to be behind the wheel!” If everything goes well, more people than ever before will finally be able to appreciate what it means to have your head firmly up your own ass while driving a gorgeous piece of German engineering. Can’t wait!
Editor’s Note: We’ve reached out to BMW for comment on this article, but so far they’ve failed to respond. Our own polling and experiences show that BMW drivers are definitely not considered rude or selfish on the road. We asked Gary in accounting, who owns a BMW, about this situation: he flipped us off and walked away, so case closed! Thank you.
