530e60

Having owned few Mercedes in the past, I set out to buy a Mercedes E320 Avantgarde but the dealer did not have any in stock with orthopedic seats. A friend suggested to go take a look at the new 5-series and I immediately liked it. However, the salesman misrepresented 530i. It was sold as "full options" car (which is the term used in this part of the world to refer to a car with every available option for this region) and it did have the Comfort seats I was looking for. However, I realized after a couple of weeks, that the car did not have a cruise control which I presume 99.9% of the luxury cars here are sold with. It also did not have the the headlight washers and both of these items were included in the generic option list that was shown to me by the salesman. I say generic because I had asked for the specific option list for my specific vehicle with its VIN number, etc. However, he claimed he only had a general 530i specification sheet and that all 530i were full options.

Anyways, when I wrote to the dealer, they admitted it didnt have a cruise control and agreed to retrofit one. I have had the car for 8 months and still no word on the retrofit. They now say they wouldnt even know till September as to the timing of the availability of the retrofit kit. My question is: Do they need to wait for a retrofit kit? Cant they just treat this as a car that originally came with cruise control and needs the parts to be replaced? I am afraid that BMW may not make a retrofit kit as 99% of the cars (at least here) are sold with cruise control; so why make a retrofit kit for the remaining 1%? It just doesnt make business sense and I dont want to wait on any fales hopes...

The other problem I have is that the car only has 8,000 kms and it already developed a clicking noise while turning the steering wheel to the left at low speeds. It does have Active Steering option and I wonder if this has something to do with the problem. Anyway, the dealer says they need to replace the steering box. Anyone else have the same problem? Any technical guys have any comments?

Also, noise from front (Confort) seats during turning and and during stop-and-go.

Thanks

browellm

No cruise? That's extremely odd. I thought the standard cruise control was built into every 5 no matter what regional market you are in. Where are you based?

530e60

Surely there is no cruise. I am located in Dubai, UAE. In December 2003, the dealer agreed to install the cruise in 6 months (claiming there was no retrofit kit available then). During follow up this month, they said that no news of retrofit would be available until September 2004. I wonder if a retrofit kit would ever be available as 99.9% of the cars are sold with cruise. Mine didnt have it and no one knows why. Whats more frustrating is they are not willing send an inquiry to Germany to see if something can be done. (I'm sure if they really made an issue out of it something positive could happen). They want to wait it out until information on all retrofit kits is announced in September. Even then, I doubt a retofit kit would be available for the very small number of cars that were left out.

tas_t_budds

I was just searching through old posts and I was wondering if anything happened about this "530e60" ? I'm in the same situation and with the same dealer in Dubai and I was given a spec list which mentioned "dynamic cruise control" and its not there in the car when I went for a pre-delivery check. So I'm still discussing with them. Its pretty odd that a 150k+ car doesn't have cruise control. Even a 90k toyota has cruise control on it !