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IL got their hands on one!
2012 BMW M550d xDrive First Drive
For BMW, this is a calendar-marking day. Before us sits the 2012 BMW M550d xDrive sedan, a car that officially launches the BMW M Performance Automobiles subbrand. If you haven't heard, it's a new lineup of vehicles that will slot between BMW's standard lineup and its M division performance cars. The M550d was built specifically to be the brand's lead-off hitter and it features a unique combination of a tri-turbo inline six-cylinder diesel, all-wheel drive and an eight-speed transmission.
The M550d xDrive is a halfway house between the fastest of the standard BMW 5 Series models and the harder-hitting M5. It's not quite an M5, but BMW claims the M550d xDrive will sprint to 62 mph in just 4.7 seconds and use a mere 6.3 liters of fuel to go 100km on Europe's combined city/highway fuel cycle. There's no EPA equivalent for those numbers, but just assume they're way better than the M5 for now.
More importantly to some, it's not quite as expensive as the M5, either. The twin-turbo, rear-drive M5 lists at €102,000 in its German home market, while the 535d lists at around €60,000. The M550d xDrive's €80,000 price tag puts it smack down in the middle.
Better Than Its Middling Position Suggests
The sad truth for those able to push past preconceptions is that the 2012 BMW M550d xDrive is so comprehensively brilliant and utterly complete that the last thing you ever think about is what manner of fuel goes into the tank or where it resides in BMW's hierarchy.
Much of the credit goes to the new tri-turbo, 3.0-liter inline-6, the first ever diesel power plant in an M-badged BMW. Clearly, its tri-turbo setup stands out, although the rest of the engine is not without its innovations (e.g., tensioning bolts that squeeze the cylinder head and the main-bearing cover against each other and piezo injectors capable of 2,300 bar). BMW acknowledges that the triumvirate of turbos is easily the most expensive chunk of the engine, so no reason not to crow about them.
The smallest of the turbos begins to spin just above idle but it's joined in its work by a second turbo from 1,500 rpm. This pair delivers the maximum torque of a crushing 545 pound-feet at just 2,000 rpm, but by then the first turbo is beginning to peter out. At 2,700 rpm, a vacuum-operated flap diverts airflow to a third variable-geometry turbo, which pushes up to the maximum power of a respectable 376 horsepower at 4,000 rpm. The two highest-revving turbochargers both stay on station until the engine runs out of revs at 5,400 rpm. All this, and it's Euro VI compliant, too, which means there is no legal impediment to it being sold in the U.S.
It doesn't exactly explode: more like it grabs the road by the scruff of the neck and starts squeezing.
Three's a Charm
All those turbos result in a smooth, progressive engine that flits the tach needle up and down crisply and cleanly, and can be minutely adjusted to keep the car balanced midcorner. In fact, the whole idea of keeping the "middle" turbo spinning right up to 5,400 rpm is to give it precise throttle response.
There's not a single point in its rev range where it feels remotely like a diesel, and it certainly doesn't sound like a diesel. It's like no diesel engine that has ever gone before it, with BMW heavily tuning its exhaust, its turbo tracts, its engine mounts and plenty of other trick pieces to give it some personality beyond its mere torque. The result is so overwhelmingly good that you quickly forget it's a diesel and start to appreciate that it's just a wonderful thing with a character all its own.
You can build up the revs to over 2,000 rpm, step off the brake pedal and hang on as the tri-turbo launches its host to 62 mph in 4.7 seconds according to BMW. It doesn't exactly feel like it explodes, but more like it grabs the road by the scruff of the neck and starts squeezing. It's blisteringly quick, but it's never brutal and it's charmingly sonorous without ever even hinting at coarseness.
Refinement Behind the Power
It settles into a quiet, smooth and seriously refined idle as soon as you push the Start button. It's not quite V8-gasoline smooth, but it's not miles removed from it. And its eerie quiet idle is backed up, whenever you blip the, err, gas, with the aural promise of violence to come.
It works, too. The sound, though, is something to behold. It's smooth, with a note all its own and utterly unlike anything else in the BMW range. It has depth, timbre and a richness of character all the way through its rev range.
[image no longer available]Smooth is one thing, but it's also incredibly fast. The 2012 BMW M550d xDrive hits its 5,400-rpm limiter hard (when you're in Manual mode) and it's a limiter that actually means something, because the engine is still pulling even though it's 1,000 rpm past its power peak. It charges between 60 mph and its 155-mph speed limiter with a constant surge of acceleration that makes you begin to believe the claims of the engineers that removing the limiter would see this car run into the mid-180-mph range.
More Than Just the Engine
All of this stupendous performance is funneled through an eight-speed automatic transmission that is so smooth as to be invisible, except in Sport or Manual mode, where BMW deliberately made the shifts harder to accentuate the M Performance thing.
Then there's the xDrive all-wheel-drive system, which does everything mechanically possible to make the M550d feel as though you'd have to be doing something incredibly stupid to ever put it in danger of leaving the road.
The M Performance treatment also means that BMW cranked the spring, damper and roll control parameters up a notch. The brakes are borrowed straight from the 550i but the standard 19-inch wheels are unique to the M550d. All told, the M550d weighs in at 4,343 pounds, which puts it about 22 pounds lighter than a 550i and 44 pounds lighter than an M5.
[image no longer available]It rides perhaps too firmly for U.S. tastes even in its Comfort setting, but it tightens up considerably in the suspension, steering, skid control systems, gearshift and throttle response in the Sport and Sport+ modes, too. In fact, the only serious criticism that can be leveled at it is the same one the M5 has attracted: There's just not enough direct or progressive feeling in its electric steering system.
The M Performance Touch
The 2012 BMW M550d adds a healthy dose of M catalog pieces like sport seats with M-specific leather and an M-spec steering wheel. You'll also notice that the M550d features a drive select system with an "Eco" mode that helps the M550d xDrive sip fuel by giving it softer throttle response, start-stop functionality and energy recuperation.
Then again, none of this is enough to endear it to the U.S. market. At least that's what BMW thinks. It insists that it has no plans to bring this monster machine to the U.S.
Why? The answer is very simple. The M550d xDrive is a diesel, and BMW isn't convinced that U.S. buyers are ready for any luxury diesel sedan, even one like this.
Can you blame the powers that be in Munich? They gave us the brilliant 335d and nobody bought it. The M550d would likely come in around $75-80K, so its chances wouldn't be much better. Take a good look at the pictures above. It's likely the only way you're ever going to see the M550d on the road.
2012 BMW M550d xDrive First Drive
