There has been some discussion here, that the E60 facelift would happen this fall.

I doubt it.

Fact: The E60 was introduced in the summer of '03 practically as a European MY '04 model.

Fact: BMW E60 is a European built car and the BMW's new MY's starts in September.

Fact: Updates to all BMW cars are made as soon as need for them appears and the
solution has been found.

Fact: BMW does also some mayor changes to their cars in March (to satisfy the US market
for their MY policy).

Fact: The normal sycly of BMW chassi models is 7 years.

Usually 4 years after introduction a facelift will occur and three years after
that a brand new model (in this case the F10) will be introduced.

This could mean that the facelift for the E60 would appear eariest in March '07
but most likely in the the fall of that same year as a MY '08.

 

I hope you are right so our cars will stay like new for as long as possible so we can sell them for more and get the F10

 

Would the M sports pack be exempt from facelifting?

 

probably.

 

I agree with later rather than sooner.

I think the current style looks great and am trying to figure out what they could even change - the 7 series had obvious flaws with headlight and trunk design - IMHO, the 5 has no easily identifiable issues. This also seems to be BMW's view as spyshots of the "freshened" car are almost indistinguishable from the current car.

Just my $0.02.

 

The M look is a good way to bluff the facelift but for sure the facelift will
also impact on the M look.

Did you see the E39 before and after the Sept. -00 facelift.

But you must see the differance between the M-look and the real M.

In the case of the M5 E39 you have to note that the M5 was introduced
only a year or so before the facelift.

BMW does live up to market aspects, but as an stock-share-market-company,
must also surprise it!

 

All BMW Facelifts happen for September build as they close their factory's down in Germany for August and retool during this period

 

Fact: There is no such US market MY policy.

But BMW will normally do major face lifts after the Aug factory shutdown with the Sept. production. And normally they do a face lift after 4 years of production, sometimes earlier (current 7 series).

 

while I possitivly hated :'( the look of the e60/e61 when introduced, having owned 3 gorgeous looking predecessors (e34, 2x e39), the look grew on me and now I am the (very) proud owner of a brand new E61 550 . the styling takes a while to get used to, but once it does, it shows how timeless it is and, after 3 years on the market, it's still way ahead of the competition (just look at the boring audi a6, or rather don't...)
let's hope Munich keeps it the way it is and it will be able to stand the winds of time with only minor changes, if any, untill the next (F10) model! (just mho)

 

Don't confuse two years of March MY introductions as standard US behavior. This is BMW behavior. You have it the wrong way around - it is not to satisfy the US market, but rather to suit BMW's own timeline. The US operates MY on the same schedule as everyone else - Aug/Sept. However, as stated before, the US doesn't tolerate large changes within a model year, and BMW has seen fit to do two large spring changes to the E60 in the past two years.

BMW has seen fit to make the changes - it must call it a new model year in the US to suit its own manufacturing timeline.



We -have- seen the spyshots of the facelift. They looked very "baked" and it would seem almost too early for them if they weren't going to be introduced until 2008. For this reason I would not be surprised if the fall model year changeover introduced these. However, you may be right. We won't know until then.