Bluetooth Almost Ruined BMW’s Attempt At Setting New Drift Record

Earlier this year, BMW set two new records with the all-wheel-drive M5 that it drifted for eight straight hours. While one would assume that the hardest part of the competition was paying attention or an issue with refueling the vehicle mid-drift, the largest hurdle the automaker faced was with the sedan’s Bluetooth system.

According to The Verge, BMW driving instructor Johan Schwartz, who was the man behind the wheel of the M5 during the run, claimed that the vehicle’s Bluetooth connection was the thing that almost brought the record run to an end.

Schwartz and fellow BMW instructor Matt Mullins, who was behind the wheel of the refueling vehicle, began the run by communicating through walkie-talkies. As anyone can imagine, that proved to be difficult as using a walkie-talkie required Schwartz to take his hand off of the steering wheel.

Shortly after running into the dilemma, the team switched to synching their cellphones to the car’s Bluetooth system. Unfortunately, that proved to be unreliable as the system dropped Schwartz’s phone at one point during the record run.

“So I had to, while drifting, you know, reset the whole thing, turn the phone off and back on again,” Schwartz told the outlet at CES earlier this year. “That was pretty, pretty interesting.” Yeah, it sounds like it would be.

That wasn’t the only issue Schwartz faced though, as the M5, which is an all-wheel-drive vehicle that has a rear-wheel-drive setting, also switched into all-wheel drive for no apparent reason six hours into the run. That’s something you definitely don’t want to happen mid-drift.

Schwartz faced other issues, as well, including snacks, getting water, and bathroom breaks. The latter was solved by setting Schwartz up with a catheter, revealing just how serious BMW was about the drift run.

“I also did have a catheter,” said Schwartz. “My commitment was either I do it the right way, or I don’t do it at all. You can’t half-ass it. Not for a big deal like that.”

For a company that wants to start charging people annually to use Apple CarPlay, it sounds like BMW needs to spend some time perfecting its basic equipment first.