Have you asked on PH as well? Might reach a wider audience.
Fed up of the diesel?
I would guess the refinement of the engine in a BMW, especially an F10 should easily surpass that of the Cadillac. I wouldn't describe mine as annoying and gruff when I accelerate hard, and that's a Ford
it has quite a meaty sound to it in fact.
I dunno really. I generally dislike diesels but my 530d is the least diesely diesel I’ve ever driven. When I take it on a long run it’s very quick, it’s surprisingly frugal (45-50mpg on long trips) and is a generally pleasing drive. On longer trips I find it a genuinely good engine with almost no downsides – the noise it makes under acceleration is really quite cool and muscular. It’s way better than a 2.0d.
The flipside though is that my commute to and from work, like many peoples, is a cold start low speed schlep through traffic. This does not cast the 530d in a good light. Until it’s thoroughly warmed up it’s not particularly refined and noticeably quite diesely. It isn’t the effortlessly silent wafter it is when it’s nice and warm and flying down an Autobahn and one of the downsides of that single large turbocharger is the oft-irritating dead zone before the turbo kicks in which sometimes impedes smooth progress. You can also feel the vibes from the engine in the cabin which irrationally drives me up the wall.
And although the majority of my miles are longer trips (Went to Germany last month for example) my day to day usage is like most people commuting to and from work. I’m not concerned with DPF issues as it gets enough long runs but I do find myself missing the silently, totally smooth and effortless refinement of a petrol engine.
Usefully it seems that the 530d is one of the more desirable engine choices in an F10 and the petrol alternatives seem to be more or less despised on the used market. I have watched numerous 528i’s sit on the AUC site for months and months This has raised the possibility of perhaps moving into a petrol F10 for minimal outlay (at a cost of more depreciation further down the line, but given that this is a long term purchase I don’t particularly care about that). I could also take the opportunity to pick an M Sport which would save me the cost of retrofitting the bits to mine, though raises separate concerns about ruining the ride with pointless Sport suspension. Might as well give up if I add ‘M Sport Suspension Delete’ to the essential options list. I’m picky enough already by insisting it’s either Titanium Silver or Space Grey.
There are 3 engine options that interest me – the 2 litre turbo in the MY12 onwards 528i, the 3 litre N53 Six in the 528i and 530i and the awesome N55 in the 535i.
I originally set out to buy a 535i and after about 4 months of finding precisely zero, bought a 530d instead. It seems nothing has really changed in this regard and the 535i remains rarer than hens teeth. When they do pop up they are invariably really rather expensive – often irrationally so. I have seen numerous ones pop up on a 61 plate at main dealers for almost 30 grand. Broadspeed.com will sell you a brand new one for 35 grand. Madness.
It’s a different story for both versions of the 528i and also the bizarrely reintroduced and obviously unloved 530i so this is where my focus is. The 530i came back onto the market at the same time as the 528i changed from being a 6 cylinder to a turbocharged 4 cylinder. The specs are as follows:
528i 3.0: 0-60 6.7, 258bhp, 310nm
530i 3.0 0-60 6.6, 272bhp, 315nm
528i 2.0: 0-60 6.2, 245bhp, 350nm
530d 3.0 0-60 6.2, 245bhp, 540nm
As we can see on paper (I hate 0-60 but its all the manufacturers ever bother to share with us) the 6 cylinder petrol engines are noticeably down on performance against the 530d and the turbocharged 528i. I actually managed to find a 530i at a dealer the other day and took it for a test drive .
Thoughts? Smooth and silent with the familiar Straight Six soundtrack. Sitting in traffic it serenely wafted along. Awesome. Lovely. Perfect. But once on the open road it just didn’t feel as potent as the 530d – the 530d really does feel genuinely very quick at times (Obviously not to those of you that drive M power cars though I’m hardly a stranger to genuinely quick cars having driven the F10 M5 around Munich) and if I’m honest I really rather like that. I actually ended up fairly disappointed by the performance on offer from the car which seems strange given it has more than 270bhp.
However, in mitigation the car was 3 up (Myself, the GF and the salesman) and did not have Sports Auto Transmission. Also, it’s 272bhp are delivered at 6100pm so you do need to rev the car quite hard to get that. Fair enough – but is that the power delivery style you want in a 1700kg 5 metre long automatic barge?
So my thoughts have turned to the 4 cylinder engine which on paper at least would appear to offer similar performance to the 530d but with the correct fuel.
But..
a) It’s a 4 cylinder
b) It’s a 4 cylinder
c) It has 4 cylinders
d) There are 4 cylinders
I need to drive one but that’s easier said than done. I’ve read many reviews, some of which say it’s awesome others say it’s slow and you should buy a 535i. But these are all American reviews of brand new examples where a 535i only costs $4k more and where every other F10 is a 535i so there is no compelling reason not to buy one. In the UK you’ll probably see more Aston Martin’s than you will 535i’s. The constant comparisons to the 535i are unhelpful and probably clouding my judgement.
Just how ‘slow’ can a 2 litre turbo that hits 60 in 6.2 seconds be anyway!? The engine itself seems amazing on paper – it even hauls the 3 Series to 60 in under 6 seconds. That’s surely got to be in the ballpark of ‘properly fast’? An E39 540i is no quicker?!
The actual answer to this question is a 328i M Sport of which there are many available, quite new examples, at great prices with good kit levels. But I just can’t love that interior, the F10 interior is IMHO absolutely wonderful and a huge plus point, the 3 Series interior is far worse off for the choice they made to make it a big 1 Series not a small 5 Series.
TBH the most annoying thing is how hard it is to get enough experience with each variant to decide which one you want to buy. The cars in the right spec are so rare that you can never just pop down to your local dealer, borrow one of each for the day and buy it if you like it. It is almost impossible to get a decent level of exposure to each model so you have to just guess and hope it’ll be right for you an take the plunge on that basis. Even the drive in the 530i was a quick spin around the block really – perhaps with 2 hours on the road to really try the car I’d have decided that on balance perhaps it *is* the right choice? But generally the salesmen sense whether you are going to buy ‘on the day’ and the level of service you receive then dictates that.
It is honestly easier to do pre purchase research on a video game than it is a car..
Perhaps it would be easier if I wasn’t so fussy and wanted something that dealers have loads of
) - all you need to do is determine whether you like the engine or not. Then, after affirming this, the hunt can begin.
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