Iceman

Yep, that's the exact reason why they put LED's in the third brake light up in the rear window. It's exactly where a following driver is looking at.

DTAHT

I understand it was a cost issue - both the engineering and installation in the car. BMW obviously cut corners all around the car and spent the money elsewhere on items such as the aluminum front body structure, automatic headlamps, development of Active Steering, etc. So costs were cut in areas such as some interior fittings (including wood trim on the console, cupholders), trim inside the trunklid, floor mats as standard, tool kit, proper door seals, and of course the rear LED lighting. Some things have been upgraded since the E60 was launched in 2003, and I would guess the LED tail/brake lights will arrive with the midlife facelift for MY2008.

EBMCS03

Its for face lift... Like someone said they had to save somthing to face lift on MY08s

kryptokat

Cost Cutting???? Come on Folks it's a BMW not a Yugo.

Again bad BMW strategy IMO, why hold back on technology / enhancements that were availble on the older model cars?

Well Bangle did a good Job with design but someone in product development and marketing needs to have their head examined.

Keep up with this bad strategy ( eg. discontinuing 545i after 2 years of production ) and BMW fans will start looking elsewhere, espesically since the competition isn't as far behind as they were.

UUronL

I still maintain BMW probably did extensive testing and decided the current system was suitable. Sometimes low-tech unsexy solutions work.

Bimmer32

It's about ART, folks. Chris Bangle did it for a reason. Just look around the car, the door handle, the contours, door levels, front, end, etc. It's all about art. Any models after it is just to satisfy the critics.

BetterMakeWay

All i can say is that it could have been leds. But i don't mind! This is a minor thing...and besides if you look at it, at night from behind, you can see from 10-15 meters a led illusion! I like this!

And come on what would you expect to do regarding the 545i? BMW has to keep up with the competetion as u said, and a slighlty bigger engine was needed to stay on top, so in this manner the 545i became obsolute, because they already gave the choice between 540i and 550i! Who needs now a 545i when you've got either the 540 or the 550 to pick? It's not that 545i was a bad car or had a bad engine but a bigger one was needed for those who want extra power, performance and state of the art engineering AND the 540i will be way cheaper to run than the 545i. Again why shouldn't the 545i be discontinued? I assure u that no real bmw fan will walk away because of some leds or because bmw dropped the 545!!!