M5 BMW M5 F10 - Test Drives/Reviews

[Merc1]

Car and Driver is saying next fall?? Uh oh.........problem.


M

 

[EMpower]

I am reading everywhere that it will be in showrooms in US by August 2012.
Car and Driver:

This fifth-generation M5, known internally as the F10, is due to arrive in the U.S. late next summer, likely as a 2013 model, and at an expected base price of around $90,000.

 

[Merc1]

Not sure if I can wait that long.....rats!

M

 

[Sunny]

And expect to pay a hefty mark up if you want one in the first few months it is available.

 

[Soup]

2013 BMW M5 - 2013 BMW M5 First Drive Review on RoadandTrack.com

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[Merc1]

And expect to pay a hefty mark up if you want one in the first few months it is available.

What a kick in the gut, earlier reports had the car arriving here in the spring. Oh well......either wait for get a 650i Coupe is what I'm thinking.


M

 

[Sunny]

I would get a CLS63 over a 650i, if waiting for M5 is not an option.

 

[K-A]

Oh wow, so a little over a year for an M5 if you want to get a decent deal on one, that's crazy! I thought I read March 2012 somewhere, which would put August 2012 about in time to allow the markeups and buzz to wear off enough to negotiate deals on them.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Are you Americans still paying over list price to 'be the first'? And they say there's a recession looming....

 

[martinbo]

I'd go for the harder riding 20" rims because they look great and the 19" ones are fugly

Judging by your dubious taste in footwear, I'm not the list bit perturbed with my choice! I kid, I kid.

19" FTW! Those multi-spoke numbers are typical M5 fare - not those clunky five-split-spoke jobs.

 

[K-A]

Are you Americans still paying over list price to 'be the first'? And they say there's a recession looming....

Anyone who does is outta their mind! Unless you have some real d-bag friends you surround yourself with, "first novelty" will usually last over a year. With my 2010 E, I was getting "Ooh, Brand New Body" reactions for well over a year after the car was released.... Almost two years, hell, I still do.

 

[Human]

Ae: Bmw m5

Can the first ever turbocharged M5 deliver the driving thrills of its predecessors? We get behind the wheel to find out

If you were concerned that the first ever turbocharged M5 would be too soft and not worthy of the hallowed badge, you needn't have worried. The new M5 is the best all-round high-performance BMW ever built.

The logic behind replacing the old 507bhp 5.0-litre V10 with a 552bhp twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 is sound. It produces 10 per cent more power, 30 per cent more torque and is 30 per cent more efficient than the old unit – and it gives the car a whole new Jekyll and Hyde personality.

Whereas the old M5 was a brutal machine whether you were rolling through town or flat-out on a race track, the newcomer can play both roles to a tee.

The benefit of 680Nm of torque, all available below 2,500rpm, is that the engine hugely flexible. Crusing along in sixth gear at 1,000rpm, if you squeeze the throttle there's still huge reserves of acceleration. At low speeds it feels more like a diesel than a performance V8.

Another surprise is the refinement and comfort levels. Switch the adaptive dampers to their softest setting and the M5 rides better than any 5 Series in the range – thanks in part to the lack of run flat tyres. The engine is hushed too and road and wind noise non-existent. But brutal pace is never too far away.

The seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, throttle, dampers, ESP and steering all get three individual settings each - comfort, sport and sport+. Start to dial in more aggressive settings and the car reveals its other side. While the engine is smooth and quiet at low revs, keep your right foot planted and it charges hard to the redline - just like non-turbocharged M5s of old.

In case you were wondering, yes it's fast, seriously fast - exaggerated by the fact that it's such a large car. You don't get the same raucous exhaust note as you did from the V10 model, but there's still a fantastic bassy V8 rumble, accompanied by a burble when you back off the throttle. Listen closely and you can hear the twin turbos, located between the two banks of cylinders, spooling up.

Two M buttons located on the steering wheel are used to store your favourite chassis settings. Simply select how ferocious, or gentle, you want the car's responses to be and hold either button down for a few seconds - much like saving a radio station - and that particular configuration is logged.

As you'd expect, on track the M5 finds it difficult to hide its bulk - but then this is a large saloon car with four seats and a sizeable boot. The body control is excellent though and the steering pin sharp - meaning there's huge fun to be had, especially with the traction control turned off.

As with all M5s the styling is subtle, but the chrome-ringed vents in the flanks, big air intakes in the front bumper and the discreet boot-lip spoiler give just enough hints that this is a serious performance machine. The interior too is standard 5-Series, although deeply-sculpted sports seats can be ordered and a sprinkling of M badges are added.

In short, this car adds another string to the M5's bow. By being refined, comfortable and civilised in normal situations, but still retaining it savage character when the time calls for it, it marks itself out instantly as one of the best M cars ever made.


Read more: BMW M5 | First Drive | Auto Express

 

[martinbo]

Here's a Sutters tidbit!

Cancel the 4WD M5 (it was never going to happen)
Steve Sutcliffe

For a while now we’ve been reporting about the prospect of there being a four-wheel drive version of the new BMW M5. According to our sources, this was a model that was going to be made available in certain markets as an adjunct to the rear-wheel drive car that we’ve driven, and been so impressed by, this week.

Well here’s the news – the 4WD model isn’t and never was going to happen. Speaking to various engineers from BMW on the M5’s international launch this week, the notion of a 4WD version is, in fact, a complete fantasy. For although BMW’s M Division built a prototype 4WD car, the reality of a production version never got further than that.

How so? Why, if they went to the trouble of building a prototype, won’t they eventually make a showroom 4WD model? Because that’s what prototypes are for; to assess what’s possible and what’s not when it comes to the production process. And the packaging of a driven front axle beneath the new M5’s busy new engine bay is, by all accounts, so complex, so difficult to achieve and ultimately so expensive to engineer, it’s now never going to happen.

And in any case, as I discovered when driving the M5 this week alongside its rivals from Jaguar (XFR) and Mercedes (E63 AMG) – all of which you can read about in a couple of weeks’ time – traction simply isn’t an issue for this incredible car. Despite boasting 552bhp and 502lb ft of torque, the new M5 puts its power down so well – far better than the 1M I chip about in every day – it simply doesn’t need a helping hand.

Phew, because for a moment there we thought the M Division had gone all soft. Now a diesel M5 on the other hand, well that’s another question altogether…

Bodes well boys and girls, bodes well...

Source:Cancel the 4WD M5 (it was never going to happen) - Confidential

 

[martinbo]

Woo hoo! Chris Harris' review from EVO!

What is it?

You have to ask? The Doctor Who of fast saloon cars, regenerating for the fifth time. It’s also the first M car to have its own internal designation code (the standard 5-series is F10, this is F10M) and the first to use a turbocharged engine developed entirely by BMW Motorsport. (That last bit is a lie, but evo’s policy of not acknowledging the existence of the X5M and X6M must continue to be enforced.)

Technical highlights?

A dual clutch gearbox, plus a twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 motor with the compressors sitting within the engine's vee and using a devilishly clever intake and recirculation system aimed purely at delivering the most responsive force-fed motor fitted to a motor car. The new V8 produces 552bhp and 501lb ft of torque.

More? Well there’s an active locking differential for the driven rear-wheels (despite rumours of 4WD, this is correct-wheel-drive only, for now at least.) You get six piston brake calipers up front, sticky Michelin Super Sport tyres, a completely new set of suspension components and an 80-litre fuel tank. Overall, we’re told that 80 percent of components are either completely new, or heavily modified, from those you’ll find on a standard 5-series.

And one technical lowlight: weight. At 1870kg, the new M5 is 90kg heavier than the old car, although it is a bigger machine.

What’s it like?

Interesting. Mostly awe-inspiring.

There is no other powertrain like this in a series production car. Some produce similar results in terms of outright performance, but not in the same manner. It’s perhaps the first car to match the benefits of grossly-turbocharged-low-RPM-performance with high engine speeds. This gives the effect of having a gigantic effective, useable powerband of over 5000rpm because it will pull hard enough in seventh gear - from just 2000rpm - for the driver to assume he was in fourth. And yet there is still something to be gained from taking it all the way to the 7200rpm redline.

The relationship with the gearbox is about as harmonious as anyone could have hoped. BMW has learned a lot about double-clutch systems and this is a masterpiece of calibration, one capable of spanning the disparate disciplines of part-throttle chugger and vein-popping, manual-shifting beserker.

I tried to fool it and make it misbehave, but it wouldn’t. On flat upshifts, the throttle cut fires a great ‘bang’ from the four exhausts. Hit the rev limiter, then back away from the throttle and it sounds like a rally car with anti-lag switched-on.

The noise needs more space for discussion than we have available, but here’s the outline plot. This car doesn’t have a signature voice like all of its predecessors. In trying to make something musical from an inherently un-musical engine layout, BMW has given the M5 several different voices: under full load at low engine speeds it’s a hollow, almost flat-plane drone. Then there’s a Veyron-esque surging whoosh of low frequency that gives way to a fascinating top-end that owes as much to a highly tuned Impreza as it does any previous M car.

Steering, dampers and throttle sharpness are all 3-way adjustable. Much of this is unnecessary gimmickry. I want to drive the car in the UK before nailing my colours to the mast – but I couldn’t find a damper setting that did everything I wanted. Comfort did what it said on the tin, but ran-out of control earlier than expected. Sport restored control, but lost more compliance than expected. Sport Plus was a bucking-bronco.

Other stuff?

The new seats are magnificent, the claimed 28mpg on the combined cycle looks unachievable in normal (fast-ish) driving. The performance is outrageous. I clocked it, perhaps very slightly downhill at 0-100mph in 8.7sec. Throttle response - the way you can make tiny adjustments mid-corner is the best I’ve encountered in a turbo.

This car takes everything that made the loveable E60 M5 a pain to live with day-to-day, and systematically corrects those problems. It has touring range, torque and a great self-shifting transmission. Oh, the brakes are fine for road use, but butter on a circuit.

How does it compare?

No point in answering that until we drive it on UK roads with a revised XFR and the new Bi-turbo E63.

Anything else I need to know?

Yes. In a first for an M5, you can order it new with a tow-bar. All other questions will be answered in a longer story in issue 163 of the magazine.

Verdict

The new M5 takes the usable hyper-saloon to new levels of all-round ability. Some questions hanging over the ride and body-control still need answering when we get one in the UK later this year. But it’s a compelling package.

5 Stars
[+] Astounding powertrain, fascinating noises, beautifully presented
[-] Heavy, some unanswered questions over damping

Source: Driven: new BMW M5 review and pictures | evo

 

[Deckhook]

They saved the best M5 till last and it's turboed, who would has guessed it. I love the 19" that look to hark back to the E39 and look the ideal size to bodywork ratio, simply hate the 20" as they are brute ugly.

 

[Human]

Woo hoo! Chris Harris' review from EVO!



5 Stars
[+] Astounding powertrain, fascinating noises, beautifully presented
[-] Heavy, some unanswered questions over damping

Source: Driven: new BMW M5 review and pictures | evo

THE Authority has spoken!

 

[EnI]

Phew, because for a moment there we thought the M Division had gone all soft. Now a diesel M5 on the other hand, well that’s another question altogether…

We?

And I was almost crucified here when calling some of you drama queens as you were panicking about upcoming M products .

Now wait till the new M3 / M4 arrive. Now when M have mastered the V-turbocharging ...

That said ... Be sure the rivals' goal will be to beat the Ms, and set the standard even higher. Some have enormous resources (and motivation) to do that! And that's only a good thing for the customers.

 

[Human]

"V" ...V - What? V6 or V8

 

[SCOTT27]

Yes and just to point out again. The M550d is not an M5 Diesel. And you will see that car @ Geneva in March 2012.

 

[EMpower]

Yes and just to point out again. The M550d is not an M5 Diesel. And you will see that car @ Geneva in March 2012.

.....and it most probably will not come to US.