The other day, I bummed a ride from one of my fellow engineers, Michelle Tsai, to pick up a new test car. While driving there in our BMW X5 diesel, Michelle admitted that she couldn’t quite figure out how to open the glove compartment. (You push a hard-to-see, unlabeled button on the far side of the dashboard center stack.)

Proud of knowing the BMW equivalent of a secret handshake, I pushed the button and the clamshell doors retracted open. Educational moment over, I shut the doors and we motored on. A few seconds later, the glove compartment doors popped open – all on their own. Hmmmm. I shut the doors, only to have them reopen a few seconds later.

Shut the doors fast – pop back open. Close them gently – pop back open. Shuffle stuff around in the compartment – pop back open again. Fiddle with the button to see if it’s stuck – pop back open. Michelle even stopped and shut the car off, hoping to “reset” the body computer like unplugging a PC. You guessed it – the doors popped back open. Hence, the reason why you see tape in the photo holding the doors shut.

So we’ve got to wonder. An electric glove compartment release seems fancy, as you push the button and the doors arc open. The electronic glove box doesn’t work that well in our Jaguar XF, either. But a manual release works fine. We’ve heard from other manufacturers that these power releases were needed to meet new crash test standards – but those releases aren’t uniform across a manufacturer’s line, even on newer-designed vehicles. And no one seems to have a problem finding a normal glove compartment latch, instead of hunting for a button among a sea of other buttons.

Ultimately, there is a cost to this over-complication. For us, it will probably be a trip to the BMW dealer. At least our X5 is still under warranty.

—Tom Mutchler