I am not a 7er owner but when I was watching InsideLine test I was shocked. Click the link below and check it out in the skid pad part (0:35). It has lots of body roll. Is that normal for a car of this size or maybe it did not have Dynamic Drive. It reminds me of muscle cars, lots of power but sucks in corners. Don't tell me its a luxury car, it should not handle very well. Its a BMW! BMWs are luxury cars that handle well but I am not sure about this new 7er.

In the second link is the comparison between the 7er and S-class. The S-class was slightly slower but it was so stable on the skid pad. Why wasn't the 7er stable in the skid pad?

7er track video

7er vs. S-class

 

I'm not a 7 owner either, but these videos sure surprised me...

They did mention that the M-B had more technology options and therefore had an advantage. To my eye, that 7 didn't handle well at all - all that lean and Benz was just steady in all the turns - just based on that alone Benz is on top. But I think if the 7er had the dynamic drive, it'd outhandle the Benz. It has to - it came out after the new S and it is, after all, a BMW - some things just should never change, like same class BMWs always being better handling cars than Benzes. And faster, too in most cases...

 

Tachyon posted a link to a recent comparison test in one of the US car magazines the other day. The new 7 was a clear last place, behind the Audi A8 and MB S550. I believe the car that came last had dynamic drive. According to the testers, the poor placing was largely due to the car having no soul and no character.

here's the link to the thread: http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=78280

 

Interesting... Is the left brake light on the 7 already busted (on the braking part of the video)??

 

I just finished reading that MT comparison and - aside from being reassured that MT is a bunch of friggin' pussies - I totally disagree with the assessment that the new 7er handles worse than the M-B. I present you with the following exhibit, which is in fact a direct quote of the article in question:

"...Scan the test results, and the 750Li presumes to be a star. And, indeed, it dusted off its two rivals in straight-line sprints, at just 4.9 seconds to 60 mph nipping the S550 by 0.4 seconds and the A8L by 1.4. It also posted the best braking and figure-eight results, albeit by the tiniest of margins. Yet off the clock the BMW pleased none of us. Throttle and transmission response is herky-jerky, thwarting all attempts to impress your passengers with your driving smoothness-and at the same time damping your enthusiasm. Steering feel is just...okay (our test car did not have the optional Active Steering). The chassis, despite those whiz-bang adaptive shocks and all that processing power, fails at both handling poise and ride comfort. The dour interior doesn't delight the eyes or your tactile senses. Our test car even emitted an annoying background fan or gear whine that seemed to follow throttle movements. This from a $105,370 luxury sedan -- and a brand-new design at that? ..."

All of these writers that attempt to hint at some immeasurable trait of some car or another (Automobile magazine often proves BMW to be a winner this way btw), without actually judging by the hardcore numbers alone are fucking theifs! These people steal your own impressions of the car and substitute them with their opinions - that are often not even their own, but those that they are paid to inflict upon you - the "unsuspecting" reader. And some of us still read their BS and begin thinking its real... disappointing.

I say, aside from hard numbers (that are also possible to manipulate during a road test btw), any magazine's reporting on any given car should consist of pictures, specs and stats. Maybe a comparison set of numbers of a competitor or two - that is it. Unfortunately, we allow these assholes to form our opinions.

In real life, I have a suspicion, no S550 would even come close to touching me, if I were driving a 750i - and even if this video with the F01 leaning worse than a 1969 VW Bus is true to life and that car is not running in its softest setup (probably the fault of the testers that don't bother figuring out how to set the car up properly), I'd still take the 7er over the Benz and take my chances on relying on my own brains to learn all these systems none of these "professionals" can ever seem to master.

PS Initial road tests of F01 praised the car in Automobile Mag and R&T (if my memory serves me correct).

 

Generally speaking, BMW does rather better than it probably should in the auto magazines, and it is the intangibles that generally give it the win. The BMW isn't always the fastest, it may not always post the best test results, but as an overall package it tends to win out over rivals. MT and (in particular) C&D rarely award a win to any other brand provided the comparison tests are properly class-competitive. Here, the F01 falls short due to the intangibles, not the raw numbers. Usually it's the other way around. The E60 550 is slower, for example than the MB E550 - but it is a better overall car. It's not too hard to understand why this particular test went the way it did, as this isn't a class that BMW traditionally dominates (unlike the 3 Series/C-Class and 5 Series/E-Class). The class leader here has long been the S Class in this segment - both in sales and in overall fitness for the purpose. There's nothing unexpected about the result here.

 

Wow, the new 7 tested by Edmunds in those clips exhibited a totally unacceptable amount of body roll. There is something way wrong when a S-Class Mercedes has substantially better body control than a 7 Series. I sure hope BMW can fix that as that type of sloppy handling is antithetical to what BMW is all around.

On a bright note, the new 7's 4.8 second sprint to 60 portends good things for the F10 550 which, should hit 60 in more like 4.6 seconds -- close to E60 M5 territory. I am a little surprised that the 400 bhp motor could move the new 7 to 60 in only 4.8 seconds. I can't help but think that the engine was putting out something like 50 bhp more than the advertised 400 bhp.

But the damn body roll exhibited by the new 7 is more worthy of a Lexus or a Town Car. No BMW should ever roll like a boat. Yuck.

 

I'll bet this is the "panic" stopping function that turns on the rear fog light (bright red light on the right). Can't say for sure.

 

My guess is that the car tested did not have active roll stabilization. On that same YouTube page there is a link to a black 750i that was tested. It is a sport package equipped car that came equipped with active roll stabilization and it did not have the same body lean as the Li shown. I wonder if they had the dynamic drive set for comfort because that was a lot of body roll even without active roll stabilization. I have not driven mine through a slalom but have cornered hard and it has uncanny flat connering with no lean...due to the active roll stabilization. Setting dynamic drive to sport or sport plus also stiffens the shocks for even tighter handling, quicker gear shifts and holds a lower gear. Were the testers only dumb enough to test it in 'Lexus" mode or is that the only Youtube clip shown. Surely they ran the slalom in all four modes and someone only posted the comfort mode test. Dont worry, the 750 Li handles great regardless of that Youtube clip.

 

No question in my mind that they had the 7 series set for comfort or something like that -- I didn't even watch the video since everyone's posts here pretty much tell me that something wasn't "apples" to "apples" in the test...