Michiganmike

August 2010 Car and Driver magazine has a comparison of the 2011 BMW 535i to an Infiniti M37 and an Audi A6 3.0T Quattro. The BMW came in third and not by a small margin. The BMW rated at the bottom in the fun to drive category and steering feel. Numb steering, feels massive and tricky to probe the suspension's limits were cited as lows. When was the last time you read a Car and Driver article that described a BMW sedan with these adjectives?

swajames

I just got my copy and came in to post this. Hell has frozen over!

550isport

Jeez, I leave the brand for a few months and they fall apart...

Seriously. BMW needs to reunite itself with core customers. BMW over the past 20 years in particular has demonstrated that sporty sells. Now everyone has followed in their footsteps (AMG, Audi etc..) So now BMW is going to reverse gears and put more emphasis on luxury?? I love BMW through and through, but it never has been (and I hope it never will be) the most luxurious luxury car. To achieve that, sporty goes out the window. Which seems to be happening little by little.

DRP

Petes550i

That's unfortunate to hear. Did the test car have the Sports package and Dynamic handling? If not, I think that would have made a big difference. In my opinion, even though the new twin-scroll I-6 is a terrific engine, it's too small for the new 535i, given it's size and weight increase. To me, the 4.4 TTV8 is the perfect engine in the new F10. Throttle response is outstanding and the car takes off like a rocket. The Sports package and Dynamic handling also makes the car much more agile and makes the car corner like it's on rails. (I'd say these 2 packages are a MUST when ordering the F10). I test drove a M37 a couple months ago and wasn't impressed too much....throttle response was sluggish and the 7-sp transmission was too slow. I also hated the "jellybean" styling of the new M's.

Rudy

I agree with Pete that the C&D test car may not have had the sport package. (If it did, it's quite likely that the bozo journalist didn't understand how to adjust the sport modes, etc.)

swajames

The car definitely had sport, you can't clearly tell if it had dynamic handling from the pics although it is perfectly probable given that it had no navigation but about 8K in extras with little in the way of obvious visible options. BMW will have provided the car for the test, you'd expect them to have fielded the best available. That said, the article didn't criticize the handling per se - it did in fact observe that the test-winning Audi had the most body-roll of all the cars on test - it was seemingly the steering and the inability to tell what the car was doing that caused most complaints. C&D noted that that the F10 scored well on the skidpad tests. It wasn't handling prowess that cost the F10, it was the suggestion that the car has become too amorphous with the F01 and has, as DRP notes above, traded too much sportiness in the process.

Edit - according to C&D, the car listed for $57,725 which all but confirms that it had metallic paint and the sport, dynamic handling and premium packages (which total $57,725).

John@Motorcepts

E60 all the way!!

sdg1871

A very disappointing result to say the least. If BMW has indeed removed the steering feel and the handling feel and predictibility then it has stripped the F10 of what makes a BMW special in the first place. I feared this would happen when BMW made the decision to pork up the weight by hundreds of pounds when moving to the F10 -- a crime. I haven't driven the F10 myself so I will reserve judgment. But if this report is accurate, then, to me, there is little reason to buy a F10 other than sheer brand loyalty. If I wanted a car with numb steering and calm steering on the highway, the last new MB E350 I recently rented fits the bill just fine and is better looking than the F10. BMW....say it ain't so. And Lexus and Infiniti have BMW beat by a country mile on reliability, electronics and stereo.

I suppose this means that when my lease is up in 2012, I will give the Infiniti M56 or the Audi A6 a serious look. I will not consider a Lexus GS given the sloppy, boring handling. My 2006 Infiniti M45 sport was a superb car with only one flaw -- a responsive but brutally rough ride. Of course, the car mags say that the M56's stability control is too agggressive and takes away some of the fun. What's a sport sedan enthusiast to do? Buy a Panamera? No way as I can't stomach the car's appearance from the rear.

Thankfully, BMW has 2 years to fix this issue before I need a new car. For now, I'll hang on to the E60 550I sport and cherish its gooodness.

vkhong

I drove the 535i at an Ultimate Drive event and have to agree with C&D's review. The F10 is a beautifully executed vehicle, inside and out. The features and options are enticing (except for not having interior LED lighting). Driver involvement seem to have been left out. Is this what E39 owners felt like when the E60 was introduced? To their credit, BMW makes cars that encourage high level of driver participation. Perhaps this is the reason why owners of the current vehicle model find it difficult to leave it for the next generation model.

I look forward to checking out the 2012 BMW F30 3-series. Hopefully, BMW still cares about their customers who *really* enjoy driving, not just arriving at the destination in style.

swajames

Perhaps, but it's the best - and with the right level of investment it is by far the fastest - car on your list by a massive margin. The Turbo gets 0-60 in a little over 3 seconds - I've seen 3.2 as the fastest and it will outhandle almost anything. Looks are polarizing (I quite like it, I can see why others may not) but it is a fantastic car. It's selling amazingly well despite the fact that you can barely get into even the base V8 models for much less than 100K.