[toong]

Should a BMW test-driver take a car out on the test track, when a engineer/designer is tweaking the glove compartiment handle ?

[juicypt]

Yes. The latch might not be strong enough to handle the centrifugal force when driving hard, or vibrations, etc.

You don't need to go out to the track once per tweak of course. You could very well do a few laps to test out the whole system once in a while.

[adriancr]

BMW still does crash testing on finished products (end-to-end tests)... which would cover glove compartment too and how it affects overall safety... (perhaps it breaks up into pointy objects on crash, maybe it opens randomly during driving causing safety issues...)

You wouldn't build a car without doing test drives at the end... or crash testing... or certifications.