In today’s video we’re demonstrating BMW’s Integral Active Steering system with this 2023 BMW X7 M60i! IAS is optionally available on xDrive40i X7 models as part of the dynamic handling package (which also includes Active Comfort Drive with Road Preview and costs $3,300), but is standard on M60i models. IAS allows the rear wheels to turn, which helps with low speed maneuverability as well as high speed stability.
What’s going on everybody ronnie dimaggio here product specialist at bmw of morristown and in today’s video we are going to be demoing a very cool new feature on this 2023 bmw x7 the lci version of the x7 so before we get into that i just want to let you guys know if you want to walk around and overview a full tour of the x7 m60 or the xdrive40 we have videos on both
Of those cars already posted on our channel we’ll link to those here now so go check those out if you’re interested in that but in today’s video we’re just going to be focusing on what’s called active rear steering integral active steering for the rear end of the x7 so that means that the back wheels can turn in xdrive 40i models that is part of the dynamic handling
Package so an x-drive 40 models dynamic handling package includes the rear steering as well as active comfort drive with road preview which uses active anti-roll bars and a camera system to make the car ride more smoothly and handle better and it also includes that rear steering however both of those things are standard on the m60 so that dynamic handling package
For 40i models is standard on the m60 so let’s walk around to the rear end of the car which is where all of the interesting things are going to be happening in this video because we’re talking about the rear axle steering system so um in the cars that are equipped with this package that’s all m60s or dynamic handling xdrive40 models the rear wheels can actually
Turn just like the front wheels do they cannot turn at nearly as much of an angle as the front wheels but they do turn enough to make a noticeable difference in a couple of different scenarios so how the system works is when you’re going low speeds around a parking lot the rear wheels will turn opposite of the front wheel seats and the front wheels to the left the
Back wheels turn out to the right what that does is help the back end of the car rotate a little bit around the front part of the vehicle so the car will kind of rotate more easily makes it way more maneuverable in parking lots and it just makes what is a relatively big car feel much smaller and more maneuverable in parking lots which is a huge benefit for cars
That are this size it also works on the highway or at high speeds when you’re going a little bit quicker at highway speeds the rear wheels will turn in the same direction as the front wheels and what that does is help the car more seamlessly glide across a road make a lane change with less movement and with more poise at high speeds so it helps with lane changes
It’ll help with like higher speed turns and things like that but the big difference is at slow speeds when you’re maneuvering around a parking lot the rear steering makes a huge difference as far as maneuverability and we are going to test that ourselves so we’re going to do a little turning circle test we’re going to see how well it does with the rear steering
Disabled which i’ll show you how to do an eye drive and then with the rear steering enabled we’re also going to show you guys some shots of how the rear wheels look when they’re turning at slow speeds obviously we can’t really hook up a gopro and show you how it works at high speeds but we’ll get some nice shots of it working at low speeds and just kind of take
You guys through all of the things that have to do with rear steering on the new x7 because it’s such a cool feature so let’s get into it we’re going to start off with some shots of the rear steering at low speeds so let’s take a look at those all right so what we’re going to do now is i am going to hop into the driver’s seat of the 23 x7 now cameraman donnie is
Going to stand behind the car and in this area to give you guys an idea of what it looks like when the back wheels turn so you guys are going to stay mic’d up with me in the front and we’ll try to give you a nice angle of the back wheels actually turning so right now obviously i’m stationary but i’m just going to turn the wheel left and right and you should be
Able to see those back wheels moving as i turn the steering wheel here that’s locked to lock on the steering wheel and now we can set off forwards a little bit we’ll go slow and just do some s turns i’m just going back and forth lock to lock with the wheel here and hopefully you guys will be able to see those back wheels turning it is a subtle uh turn you’re
Obviously not getting full steering angle out of the rear wheels like you would for the front wheels but they do turn and they do make a big difference in maneuverability so that is what it looks like when the rear wheels are turning in the x7 hopefully that was an okay shot i want to give you guys an idea of what it actually looks like because you can definitely
See it in person hopefully it shows up on camera as well but now what we’re going to do is a turning circle test so bmw says that the turning circle is noticeably reduced with the rear steering and we are going to put that to the test and see um how big of a difference roughly the turning circle is with the rear steering on and the rear steering off so let’s hop
Inside the car i’ll show you guys how to disable the rear steering and then we’ll do a little turning circle test all right so here we are inside of the x7 there’s two things i want to point out before we go to how to shut off through your steering first thing is when we take a look at this screen we have the guidelines for the front wheels but you can also see
A little guideline there for the back wheel so as i turn the wheel you can see this green line here moves to show you the path of the rear wheel as well which is nice to see the second thing that i want to show you guys is let’s pop the car in reverse and get that mirror to tilt down if we look in the mirror this is just another nice way to see that back wheel
Turning it’s something you got to pay attention to in the mirror there but you should be able to see it moving in and out um you can go from seeing like the back edge of the wheel right here the rim face and now you should be seeing like the inside edge of the tire there hopefully that shows up okay but just another way to see that back wheel moving in action so
Now let’s go over how to disable the rear steering so we’ll go to our vehicle apps here we can go to driving settings and we’ll go to drivetrain and chassis and now what we want to do is put the car in tire chains mode so you can see here rear wheel steering is deactivated when snow chains are fitted and then observe maximum speed with snow chains obviously we
Don’t actually have snow chains on the car but we’re going to put it in tire chain mode what that does is disactivate deactivate i should say the rear steering which is a nice way for an owner to just kind of see what it’s like to not have rear steering and to have rear steering you can toggle it on and off at your leisure if you want to see what the difference is
Or for people like us it’s a nice way to test how different the turning circle is so with that said we’re going to hop outside the car again and we’re going to do a little turning circle test to see how big the difference is with and without rear steering all right so here we are for our turning circle comparison test this is going to be a rudimentary test at
Best we um are just going to run a little experiment here and see what happens to try to show you guys uh the difference between rear steering on and rear steering off so take a note of the camera angle right there in your head what you’re seeing make a note of where the car is with proximity to these lines on the ground because we’re going to run two tests and
That is the start point that needs to be the same for both so i’m gonna hop in the x7 here right now we have our rear steering disabled so only the front wheels are going to be turning obviously the tire chains uh we’re telling the car that we have tire change on the car so i’m going to cut the wheel all the way to the left here and i’m just going to make a slow
Circle and the point of this test is to see if i clear this wall that i’m approaching or if i crash the x7 into the wall and destroy the front bumper let’s see what happens so i’m getting pretty close to the wall here as a driver that’s not familiar with the x7 i would put the car in reverse here and try uh to maneuver a different way i know i can see in the
Camera here that i’m probably not going to hit the wall almost definitely not but i don’t want to risk it so i’m going to throw it in reverse and back up safely and uh get out of here safely so hopefully you guys were able to make a mental note of how close we got to the wall there because all right so here we are in the x7 we have the tire chains off so rear
Steering active again going to turn the wheel all the way to the left and make a slow circle here i can already tell from the driver’s seat that i’m making a tighter circle i’m sure you guys can tell on video that i’m making a tighter circle here now as i approach the wall here is it about this point with tire chain mode on and the rear steering deactivated i
Was a little bit hesitant but i can see here the parking sensors haven’t even activated i’m plenty clear of that wall so i’ll keep going here and we’ll just turn back into where we were now i will be the first to admit that that is far from a scientific test we didn’t break out the tape measures or the rulers or anything to kind of measure the turning circle
Exactly but as just a visual demonstration hopefully that gave you guys an idea of the difference uh that the rear steering makes as far as making that turning circle tighter and thus making the car more maneuverable in terms again we’re not geometrists here so we’re not going to like you know measure the turning circle and whatnot with any like instruments but as
A visual representation i think uh that should be helpful for you guys to give you guys an idea what it looks like and what you’re working with as far as the rear steering goes so that is going to do it for our turning circle test as well as our discussion on the rear steering in the 2023 x7 like i said optionally available on xdrive40 models with dynamic handling
But standard on m60 cars so that’s going to do it for this one thank you guys so much for watching hope you enjoyed that video if you did please drop a like down below and consider subscribing to the channel if you have any questions about the x7 or the rear steering system or anything bmw related in general drop them down in a comment below please follow us on
Instagram facebook and tick tock at bmw of morristown but that is going to do it for this one thank you guys so much for watching and we’ll see in the next one you
Transcribed from video
Rear-steering in the 2023 BMW X7 M60i! How it Works & Turning Circle Test (Integral Active Steering) By BMW of Morristown
