BENTLEY’S Continental GT amazed me in many ways. Even though I’m not a Premiership footballer, I still quite fancy one.
But, in two respects, it’s bad. Very bad.
Fuel economy.
Obviously so on this one. It does, after all, have a huge W12 engine, fed by turbos, hauling along a hugely heavy car that’s encumbered with four-wheel-drive. Mighty, it sure is: here’s the price.
But there’s more.
Bluetooth. Yes, it has it. But it’s staggeringly bad.
I tried it out. Went like this:
•   Find Bluetooth on menu. Eventually.
•   Decipher how to pair Bluetooth with phone. Eventually.
•   Set Bluetooth to discover phone. Does so. Eventually.
•   Find you’re presented with 12-digit pairing code between phone and car.
•   Use torturous turn-and-scroll wheel to do this. Eventually.
•   Be presented with an error message.
That’s right – a heinously complex process, that didn’t work! I was staggered. Particularly as Bentley is, somehow, having the brass neck to charge big for this.
Contrast this to my Volvo long-termer. There, I paired the phone with the car with ease. Took 30 seconds, simple as pie.
And then? Every time I now get in, it pairs automatically. So long as Bluetooth’s activated on my phone, it pings up in the car. Calls fed through speakers, controls mastered by steering wheel buttons, the lot.
This is technology that works. That someone’s thought about, and a team of engineers have tirelessly perfected.
Bentley? That smacks of a box-tick. A plug-in module that the marketing team said had to be fitted, so was done so, but with no understanding or consideration.
You get this a lot on cars. But, £130k ones? That’s a surprise. Bentley needs to give this bad Bluetooth a tug.
Bentley Continental GTC Speed photo stream on Flickr
Just how loyal are the super-rich?
Fuel economy economical with the truth?
