Hi,

I just read in a Swedish car magazine that the E61 will have air suspension and Dynamic Drive as standard. This was supposedly to make sure that the new 5-series touring would have at least as potent on road as the sedan (I guess that they would not like to have the same problems as they had with the first models of the E39 touring). Has anybody else heard something similar, or is this something that is made up?

I find it hard to belive that BMW would put the expensive Dynamic Drive option as standard on the touring.
The problems associated with the suspension of the E39 Touring was related to the fact that the dampers on the rear suspension is angled inwards. BMW used this approach because they wanted a larger and completly flat luggage floor, but apparently this construction had quite a negative impact on handling. This is probably the main reason the E46 touring doesn?t have this type of rear suspension.

By using a more conventional rear suspension like without the dampers being angled inwards there will probably not be any problems with suspension on the new E61 touring. Using Dynamic Drive and keeping the bad rear suspension from the E39 touring would be working around the problem rather than solving it, and that doesn?t really make any sense.

I find it hard that air suspension EDC would be standard equipment as well. The E46 Touring handle good without both Dynamic Drive and EDC.
It would be both way to expensive have Dynamic Drive and EDC as standard on the new 5-series Touring. It would also require the price diffrence between the sedan and touring to be quite high to compensate for the additional equiment.

I was also suprised to see this information, but after searching a bit on the net I found that the same information is given in Autoexpress. Wounder where they got it from? Does anybody have an idea on when BMW will release more information on the E61?

Probably a few more months yet...Touring start of production is currently scheduled for March 2004.