I’ve made the mistake once or twice of browsing shopbmwusa.com a little too late at night, if you know what I mean. Less costly than browsing eBay or local classified ads, but still – a potentially expensive mistake that I’m sure some readers can relate to. This time, however, I not only managed to not spend any money – huzzah! – and even found a cool new feature. Apparently, BMW has introduced a “visualizer” for parts and accessories. Much like the Individual Visualizer, you can select your model (and trim in some cases) and add some parts to see what it looks like. I had the best luck picking a late-model M car.
Limitations to the Parts and Accessories Visualizer
Many older models are listed but will not actually load into the visualizer. However, this isn’t a huge limitation as there isn’t a vast number of accessories available for them, anyway. The site also will occasionally time out and refuse to load, but a quick refresh usually fixes that. The parts catalog hasn’t quite been completely baked in yet, so even though you know there might be some additional parts for your model they may not show up.
Newer vehicles – while mostly configurable and functioning – have a somewhat limited selection of parts. A good example is the omission of the M Performance Exhaust for the G80 M3. Its things like this that remind us that this is still (clearly) a work in progress.
Visualizing the Future
While still under construction, the the BMW parts visualizer is a neat sneak peek at what may be to come. It’s also a decent tool for owners of newer models to see what is possible through the parts store. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, we may be able to deck out our dream M2 in all sorts of M Performance accessories. For now, we’ll just have to use our imagination.
