Trip Report (Long): Camping (1 night) in my IX

I grabbed my IX 45 a week for an overnight stay of 650 miles. In preparation, I bought a foam+air mattress and booked a reservation at a nearby state campsite that offered 50-ampers service (for charging the IX). I also read about simulating “camp mode” in a BMW.

Destination

Cherry Springs State Park, in the north of Central Pennsylvania, is a Golden International Dark Sky Park. It is generally considered the darkest place east of the Mississippi River, so it’s great for star views and astrophotography. If you go at the right time of the year, you can see the Milky Way as you just can’t do in cities and suburbs.
Here is a photo of their website and one that I have taken (directly from my phone without edits).

Charging challenges

The Cherry Springs area used to be a loading desert. Since I was there for the last time, a Ford dealer in the neighborhood has installed a 120 kW charger that splits the power immediately when both cables are in use. (The next nearest DC chargers is an hour’s drive.) Four AC chargers of 48 ampèremoeds were installed in the parking lot of the Cherry Springs visitors. Each pair shares a 60-amp circuit (that is, you get 5.5 kW when both chargers are used on a circuit).

My flex loader would not pass on the power of the Nema 14-50 Exhaust at the campsite (it showed a line of orange lights.) As a backup plan I paid to charge up to 80% to the Ford dealer. At Cherry Springs I got 9 kWh while staring and taking photos. When I was done, I went back to the campsite to sleep.

Mattress and frame

I originally thought I would get an SUV mattress with special purposes to cover the entire load and rear seat. Most SUV mattresses offer too few measurements to ensure that we fit well in an IX. Instead, I selected a lost horizon option3 Twin (75 “x 38”) from Amazon. It leaves a few centimeters on the sides to place things you need at night.

The rear seats of the IX do not fold flat. (They are located at an angle of about 11 degrees.) The top of the folded chair ridge is 4 7/8 “higher than the freight bottom behind the seats. Bedframes can increase the mattress over the bend to offer a flat sleeping surface, but cost hundreds and decreasing headroom.

There was no time to investigate, order and deliver a bed frame for this trip, so the mattress went on the floor and was therefore bent in the middle.

Head versus base

I slept with my head to the front of the car to give myself maximum headroom. I found this uncomfortable because of the 11 ° bend in the sleeping surface and because my feet continued to touch the rear. I also left the hatch truck coverage in place and my legs hit it a few times. The mattress itself was comfortable and I got 5.5 hours of sleep. However, the bend and the foot/leg -thing generally did not make a good experience.

I had to take a nap on the ride home. Because the mattress was still blown up, I pulled in a resting place, removed the hatch freight lid (!) And slept with my head to the back of the car. This worked much better that slept forward. My feet could “stick out” between the front seats, so I didn’t feel limited. The bend in the sleeping surface did not bother me. (Perhaps the 11 degrees tilt was prevented by the tape of my legs ???)

Loading OR Climate control

UPDATE: Simultaneous loading and continuous climate control seems possible. Details in response 11.

Rant: BMWs do not have a special camp mode, as Rivians and Teslas do. We are over to approach that mode with many institutions adjustments that still produce undersized results. Although few BMW owners want to sleep in their vehicles, BMW must contain modes for “occupation instead of driving” (eg campsite, pets, people in the car while the driver runs on the market, etc.) Charging and comfort are maintained in these compromises: you can have climate control without loading without climate control. /Tirade

(See Answer 11 for updates to these instructions.) Open the door for the continuous climate control, secure the seat belt of the driver, get in, start the car, use Idrive to switch off lights (interior and outside) and the middle display, switch off the cabin -motion alarm and then leave). Enter through a back door, close it and lock the vehicle. The climate control runs all night, but the car cannot charge because it is in the Drive -Ready. (Note: We cannot eliminate the driver’s display, so you have to cover it. We cannot switch off the background lighting of buttons on the doors and the center console, so just be happy that they are not very clear.)

(See answer 11 For updates to these instructions.) With overnight stay you cannot continuously perform climate control. However, you can plan a “following departure time condition” and three planned presence times to give you four periods during the night in which the climate control is activated and runs for up to 30 minutes. Remember that the times you select, for when climate control must be made (ie when the cabin has to be comfortable before departure) instead of when it should start. Don’t forget to check whether the flex loader works where you are staying and whether it is connected before you go to sleep.

Because I had sued the Ford dealer, I was focused on climate control instead of charging, so I opted for continuous climate control. Normally I keep the cabin at 70 °. That was too hot to sleep, so I lowered it to 67 °. It was 57 outside and climate control used less than 1% battery/hour. I don’t know much that this figure would have been varied if it had been 30 or 80 degrees outside.

Last thoughts

Entering and leaving through a door is easier than using the hatch and has less chance of causing paint damage.

The next time I opted for intermittent climate control with continuous charging to prevent problems with the display and the background lighting.

I will probably get a mattress frame. The entire box duo (40 “wide) with the optional stubbies (ie short legs) holds the bed frame just over the folded rear seat, which leaves 20-24” of headroom above a 4 “mattress is a foam+air model, it will comprimine that is not a centimeter or two of extra main room.