![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
I test drove one 3 years ago when deciding between it and the E92. It was the most underwhelming car I have ever driven, everyone goes on about Audi interiors as if they were amazing - it was flimsy, hadn't worn well and although the paper stats look good performance wise most of it was probably off the line Quattro advantage. The infotainment was rubbish, the instrument cluster etc dated. It didn't stack up against an old shape 3 Series Coupe let alone the other cars you've been considering.
£20k budget, 20-30k pa
- Thread starter ChrisD.
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Given nigh every f10 I see on my travels (which is an awful lot!) is a 520d of some sort or other, I think the buying public see it as either the sensible or perhaps the only option!
Mind you, I saw 5 f10 M5's last week in various locations in the north west which was most surprising, all were different colours too!
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If most XF's are anything like the one we have then reliability is very disappointing, only 4 years old and all the bushes are going, inlet manifold cracked (£2000 repair) and boot lid wiring has failed due to rubbing.
its an XF S, ride is nice and power is good but should have got a 5 series instead.
its an XF S, ride is nice and power is good but should have got a 5 series instead.
Given nigh every f10 I see on my travels (which is an awful lot!) is a 520d of some sort or other, I think the buying public see it as either the sensible or perhaps the only option!
Mind you, I saw 5 f10 M5's last week in various locations in the north west which was most surprising, all were different colours too!
I'd say for 520d the vast majority of the "buying public" = company car drivers.
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If I may offer some insight into 520d v 530d.
I drive an F10 530d 8AT with SAT, my father has an F11 520d Touring 8AT with SAT which I've driven extensively. I've also had a 520d Manual M Sport as a loan car on a number of occasions.
Obviously, the 530d is superior. It is more refined, it is quieter, it is significantly more powerful and the noise you do hear is actually rather pleasing. By contrast the 520d is less refined, the engine is noiser and when you do hear engine noise under acceleration etc it's just noisy diesel gruff rather than anything nice.
That said, aside from these differences the 520d is probably the best 4 cylinder diesel car around, its certainly the best I've driven. The soundproofing goes a long way towards muting the engine and in day to day use its perfectly acceptable and never intrusive. The power delivery style of the 520d can be frustrating - there is essentially nothing there below 2000rpm or over about 3800rpm. In a manual gearbox fitted car this is hugely frustrating and bothered me constantly - it was breathless pulling away from slow speeds at low revs, you were forever stirring the gearbox and the box itself offered almost zero driving pleasure.
But the ZF 8 speed gearbox makes all this go away. Suddenly the power band is irrelevant because with 8 ratios and a fantastic autobox it's ALWAYS in the power band or a millisecond away from it. The gearbox smooth’s over most of the negative aspects of the 520d and leaves you with a reasonably quick, very frugal and pretty well refined economical mileage muncher.
It is never going to provide the sort of driving enjoyment the much more powerful versions will but if you want to soak up 20-30k miles a year and spend less than £20k it's well worth considering, mostly because the fact there are so many of them around means it's much easier to get a nice one for under 20k than it is with a 520d. I would be surprised if you can't find a sensible mileage 2011 520d SE Auto with Xenons and Pro Nav for under £20k.
Just don't buy it with a manual box.
Also look for a 525d – it has the refinement and smoothness of a 530d but costs rather less. Until MY12 the 525d was a detuned 3 litre 6 pot.
A word of caution though, be very careful with the mileage on whatever car you chose. You are presumably going to want to run it with warranty, the BMW warranty on a 5 is very expensive if the car has over 60k miles at renewal. Therefore, this means with your annual mileage, you need a car which has less than 60k on it when you buy your BMW warranty, allowing you to fix the price and cover with a monthly policy. So if you buy an approved used one, it needs to be under about 35k miles otherwise you'll be over 60k when you come to renew. If you buy privately you can afford a higher mileage as you can purchase the warranty right away as you won't have one included.
I drive an F10 530d 8AT with SAT, my father has an F11 520d Touring 8AT with SAT which I've driven extensively. I've also had a 520d Manual M Sport as a loan car on a number of occasions.
Obviously, the 530d is superior. It is more refined, it is quieter, it is significantly more powerful and the noise you do hear is actually rather pleasing. By contrast the 520d is less refined, the engine is noiser and when you do hear engine noise under acceleration etc it's just noisy diesel gruff rather than anything nice.
That said, aside from these differences the 520d is probably the best 4 cylinder diesel car around, its certainly the best I've driven. The soundproofing goes a long way towards muting the engine and in day to day use its perfectly acceptable and never intrusive. The power delivery style of the 520d can be frustrating - there is essentially nothing there below 2000rpm or over about 3800rpm. In a manual gearbox fitted car this is hugely frustrating and bothered me constantly - it was breathless pulling away from slow speeds at low revs, you were forever stirring the gearbox and the box itself offered almost zero driving pleasure.
But the ZF 8 speed gearbox makes all this go away. Suddenly the power band is irrelevant because with 8 ratios and a fantastic autobox it's ALWAYS in the power band or a millisecond away from it. The gearbox smooth’s over most of the negative aspects of the 520d and leaves you with a reasonably quick, very frugal and pretty well refined economical mileage muncher.
It is never going to provide the sort of driving enjoyment the much more powerful versions will but if you want to soak up 20-30k miles a year and spend less than £20k it's well worth considering, mostly because the fact there are so many of them around means it's much easier to get a nice one for under 20k than it is with a 520d. I would be surprised if you can't find a sensible mileage 2011 520d SE Auto with Xenons and Pro Nav for under £20k.
Just don't buy it with a manual box.
Also look for a 525d – it has the refinement and smoothness of a 530d but costs rather less. Until MY12 the 525d was a detuned 3 litre 6 pot.
A word of caution though, be very careful with the mileage on whatever car you chose. You are presumably going to want to run it with warranty, the BMW warranty on a 5 is very expensive if the car has over 60k miles at renewal. Therefore, this means with your annual mileage, you need a car which has less than 60k on it when you buy your BMW warranty, allowing you to fix the price and cover with a monthly policy. So if you buy an approved used one, it needs to be under about 35k miles otherwise you'll be over 60k when you come to renew. If you buy privately you can afford a higher mileage as you can purchase the warranty right away as you won't have one included.
Perhaps yes, it seems though ,in that case, very few private -new- buyers opt for the f10, I check the badge as they pass me daily (relieves the boredom of trucking!) it's a rare sight to see anything other than a 520d and almost invariably then it's a 530d, I wonder how long before Petrol engined 5's are a thing of the past? I would imagine these days the R&D costs of developing new petrol variants just don't stack up compared with sales figures, in certain markets at least.
In the op's case though I think a 520d makes good sense, he has something to blow the cobwebs away at the weekend.
I wouldn't want one day to day if I didn't have a weekend toy in which case surely the 530d would be the better bet.
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Audio and Pro Nav are not related - you can have base audio and pro nav, you can have no nav at all and top audio.
There are three levels - standard, Business Hifi and Professional Hifi.
Finding audio upgrades is rare - especially on a 520d, though the aforementioned 520d does have the Professional Hifi system and it sounds excellent. Excellent enough that after resigning myself to the fact I wasn't going to find one with Pro Hifi myself, I began pricing up upgrade options for the regular hifi.
Then I got my 530d and realised the standard audio is actually really good for a stock system, it is MILES better than the dross BMW used to fit as standard. If you are an audiophile it might not work for you but for me its good enough for me to have shelved any upgrade plans I had.
There are three levels - standard, Business Hifi and Professional Hifi.
Finding audio upgrades is rare - especially on a 520d, though the aforementioned 520d does have the Professional Hifi system and it sounds excellent. Excellent enough that after resigning myself to the fact I wasn't going to find one with Pro Hifi myself, I began pricing up upgrade options for the regular hifi.
Then I got my 530d and realised the standard audio is actually really good for a stock system, it is MILES better than the dross BMW used to fit as standard. If you are an audiophile it might not work for you but for me its good enough for me to have shelved any upgrade plans I had.
I would say you want to try and get one with an upgraded stereo, like the HK, but that is personal preference. In all honesty, I had the standard speaker set-up in my e91 and I got on fine with it. It wasn't groundbreaking, but it did the job. I have HK in my F11, and I really do like it lots.
Pro nav is a must though. Gives you the bigger screen for a start, which just makes the interior of the 5. But will give you the HDD for storing music to. Unsure if it gives you the USB in the centre console, but don't buy one that doesn't have this. My e91 didn't and I hated that about it. And it isn't a cheap retrofit. I think Pro nav gives you audio streaming on pre-LCI, but it definitely doesn't on the LCI, but I believe it can be coded in.
520d would be a good shout. I didn't even drive one when looking, as it was the 6 cylinder I went for (I generally go through the numbers BEFORE a test drive, because if the numbers don't work, I have no interest in driving the car. After doing the numbers on the 520d and the 530d it was a no brainer to go for the bigger engine. But that was new. Probably not so much on the second hand market as you will no doubt get a better spec 520d for your money.
Sports auto is a must. You cannot get it on the 520d post LCI, but I believe you could pre-LCI, which is right in your budget. As Fox says, the manual isn't the best option on a 5 series, and the non-SA won't be anywhere near as nice. So might as well keep that one high on the priority list.
I would always want the SA, Pro Nav, xenons and M-Sport as minimum spec. But the earliest 5's didn't come in M-Sport, but had an extra package that gives most of the M-Sport spec. This is what Fox has. And is worth waiting for if they are not immediately available. My car has the M-Sport Plus but I would guess that's a relatively new option?
Pro nav is a must though. Gives you the bigger screen for a start, which just makes the interior of the 5. But will give you the HDD for storing music to. Unsure if it gives you the USB in the centre console, but don't buy one that doesn't have this. My e91 didn't and I hated that about it. And it isn't a cheap retrofit. I think Pro nav gives you audio streaming on pre-LCI, but it definitely doesn't on the LCI, but I believe it can be coded in.
520d would be a good shout. I didn't even drive one when looking, as it was the 6 cylinder I went for (I generally go through the numbers BEFORE a test drive, because if the numbers don't work, I have no interest in driving the car. After doing the numbers on the 520d and the 530d it was a no brainer to go for the bigger engine. But that was new. Probably not so much on the second hand market as you will no doubt get a better spec 520d for your money.
Sports auto is a must. You cannot get it on the 520d post LCI, but I believe you could pre-LCI, which is right in your budget. As Fox says, the manual isn't the best option on a 5 series, and the non-SA won't be anywhere near as nice. So might as well keep that one high on the priority list.
I would always want the SA, Pro Nav, xenons and M-Sport as minimum spec. But the earliest 5's didn't come in M-Sport, but had an extra package that gives most of the M-Sport spec. This is what Fox has. And is worth waiting for if they are not immediately available. My car has the M-Sport Plus but I would guess that's a relatively new option?
Thanks. How do I know which have the 8 speed auto in them? For example, this 525d:
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201406114940998/
It doesn't really specify.
Or this one (pushing the budget and no Xenon):
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201405314624394
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201406114940998/
It doesn't really specify.
Or this one (pushing the budget and no Xenon):
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201405314624394
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All automatic F10's are 8 speed - it is the only automatic transmission offered (I am ignoring the M5).
The car you have linked to is the later 4 cylinder twin turbo 525d. It actually looks pretty nice - still has manufacturers warranty as well and should be under 60k when it expires for the cheaper renewal.
The car you have linked to is the later 4 cylinder twin turbo 525d. It actually looks pretty nice - still has manufacturers warranty as well and should be under 60k when it expires for the cheaper renewal.
Cheers. I will continue looking around. I take it the later twin turbo 4 pot is pretty decent? Also it lists adaptive suspension, is this to do with changing ride height with luggage, or changing damper setting for different driving preferences?
It's a non BMW dealer, they've probably got no idea what spec it has and have mistaken the Drive Select switch for adaptive suspension. It is possible to get variable damper control on those but it's not common. It isn't height adjustable or self levelling.
I've decided to go for an A5 3.0 TDI S Line Quattro. I'm sure the car has its haters (it's been mentioned in this thread), but it ticks all the right boxes for me. Went to see this earlier, and pending a quick chat with the owner I will be putting down a deposit and collecting next week.
Looks nice enough, and will no doubt have all the right toys.
I really like these if I'm honest. I have always been an Audi fan though. The only thing that would put me off is their poor diesel performance, but then that may have just been me being unlucky. And may not actually bother you anyway as you were initially considering petrol anyway.
Have been considering either an S4 avant or S5 as a future purchase though. So long as it's the 3.0T. I do like Audis...
I really like these if I'm honest. I have always been an Audi fan though. The only thing that would put me off is their poor diesel performance, but then that may have just been me being unlucky. And may not actually bother you anyway as you were initially considering petrol anyway.
Have been considering either an S4 avant or S5 as a future purchase though. So long as it's the 3.0T. I do like Audis...
I've driven Type R's and Evo for 10 years, I'm sure I'll manage.
[TW]Fox;26664722 said:
There were none around that I liked the look off. I also prefer the interior of the Audi.
I know that the F10 will probably be the better drive, but I didn't find the A5 lacking at all.