All Early 2000s Acura TL and RL’s had HIDs. Surprise surprise MDX didn’t get them till 2007!

yeah those GMT800 Denalis were badass and very classy! I was in elementary school when those were being made and I always like them.

The GMT 900 Denalis haven't aged well with those cheap looking multireflector headlights IMO. When I was a kid I really liked them though.

 

And yes! HIDs are way better than halogens LEDs are better still.

 

So did my 2000 323i, the cheapest car in the entire BMW lineup at the time.

 

They definitely weren't standard equipment, though.

 

They were not, I paid $495 for them.

It's obviously been a while, but I think the only options on my E46 were HIDs, Premium Package, Moonroof, and silver paint. So pretty darn close to base.

 

I’m surprised BMW let you order them on the 323i. They are usually picky about which models get nice options. For example you can only get ventilated seats with a black interior on the 3/4 series and X3. That would be a dealbreaker for me….

 

Back in the day they were much more open to you ordering cars Euro-style with lots of a la carte options and less restrictions. My dad had a cool 2002 E39 540i with a mint green interior when I was young, for example. Nowadays the push for simplification has limited that flexibility.

 

That's a supply constraint thing. Pre-pandemic they were available across the lineup, along with several other options. Then some were dropped entirely, some restricted to the top model, some brought back for some models, etc.

Actually it looks like right now you can't get ventilated seats in the 3-series at all. They're available across the 4-series lineup (coupe, convertible, and grand coupe), with either black or mocha leather. But those are much lower volume than the 3-series sedan. To your point about wider feature availability in higher models though, I have ventilated Orange seats in my M3

But even then, supply constraints can become a thing. Carbon buckets stopped being available on the M3 for about 2 months at the end of MY23 production, and folks who had scheduled builds that hadn't entered production yet had to either take the standard sport seats or cancel their orders. They became available again early in MY24 production, but were always available for the M2 and M4 without interruption.

 

Come on BMW! it’s just a little fan under the seat cushion. Honestly all cars should have this feature given how oppressively swampy car seats get in the summertime.

On a related note. The E46 came standard with manual rear windows in Europe. I saw a video about a wagon recently that a guy bought for cheap.

 

"Standard" Europe spec for premium German vehicles tend to be ridiculously unrepresentative of what the brand is all about. Look up some fleet or taxi-spec cars - the badge thing really does exist over here. I don't like the lack of power rear windows on my mom's Yaris (standard on a COROLLA ffs, and this is a top-spec 1.8l t-sport yaris with keyless ignition), I'd never settle for that in anything "premium"... but they do exist (or used to - I sincerely hope that this is a thing of the past by now, whether due to supply chain simplification or otherwise)

 

what piece of machinery that car is! that seemed to have one of the last "good" BMW V8s, i've driven a 1998 540i that had 300k miles on it and ran well! of course just about every orange lcd pixel on the dash was dead lol... either way a late model E39 540i in 6MT is probably the perfect sporty sedan in terms of beautifully balancing styling, driving, luxury, and real world practicality

 

Lol remember the fake aftermarket xenon headlights?

Agree about E39 540i. If only BMW V8s and cooling systems weren’t grenades. I can only dream of the satisfaction of using a clutch and shifting myself with a V8 like that.

 

From CR...............

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars...port/?pagestop

Headlights

Standard halogen headlights may not provide the bright, white light of LEDs, but they don’t need it as they do a very good job of lighting the road ahead and to the sides with both low and high beams. The level of visibility actually exceeds the performance of many LED equipped vehicles even though intensity is less. GM’s Intellibeam automatic high beam system is also standard and can help drivers take advantage of the additional high beam visibility as often as traffic and conditions allow by automatically switching to high beams. LED headlights are optional on higher trims.

 

IIHS headlight testing rates the Trailblazer with halogen low and high beams "A" which means Acceptable.

It rates the Trailblazer with LED low beams and halogen high beams "G" which is Good. It's only with this setup that the Trailblazer gets their Top Safety Pick+.

 

Yup, how about that?