luxembourg

My dealer in Luxembourg organized this cool presentation of F10 already on Tuesday 16th, exclusively for their previous 5-series clients.
So, I went down and enjoyed great quality French champagne, some really tasty snacks, and... yeah the car - that too ..
Sorry guys for the delay, was really busy at work in between. Here are my thoughts on F10 presentation.

Most of all, I am not a huge fan of F10... I love E60 design, and honestly I think BMW is loosing their sporty edge with F10...
Having said that, voila my comments:

Negatives first :

1) What I hate the most, that visually 7-er and new 5-er are almost identical, specially inside + of course you have the same chasis, 8-auto-transmission ZF, etc.
It may be advantage for those who're looking for comfort and prestige, but not necessarily for me personally. I loved that at certain moment you could distinguish between models in a blink of an eye. Now, it's not a case anymore and I hate seeing "sporty" 5-er being now gone.. but, again: perhaps it's a new marketing approach in Munchen?


There are other things I hate about F10:

2) white, plastic stripes under the front lights/reflectors... I don't know what is the purpose, but GT has them, new LCI 3-er has them, even X1 has them. What I already said after the Frankfurt's presentation of GT: when you look at them from up-close they simply look cheap&chinese made like.. So, no idea what they had in mind putting such a terrible thing in there...

3) rear lamps: the shape is strange. I loved the oval, "closed" shape design of E60's rear lamps. Now,it's divided into two parts and to my eyes it looks like two different designers were working on both parts of the lamp (fender and trunk), and they simply didn't meet in one common spot, hate it...

4) I was afraid and it became reality now: front shape's profile looks like an old Volvo S80... I can only hope M-paket will soon fix that awful impression...

5) I don't know about darker colors, but those at the presentation already looked awfully scratched (and on new cars!), there is something wrong with the final finish layer on dark BMWs, I've never noticed that on lighter cars (or silver - like mine). For the record: I simply love that new blueish-black, if not so easily scratched, it would be my next choice...

On the other hand, with all my negative approach, I find some good things:

1) Finishing level, details of the interior are simply amazing...
It's a lot more than I could ever expected.. Honestly: it's like a whole new class, now I can see my old good E60 being a really car designed almost 10 years ago..

2) Still on the interior finishing: take the sideboard door panels: they used to be standard normal shape, nothing interesting; wood, aluminium or plastic..
now: WOW, shape is awesome, and the combination of both: wood and aluminium in one single piece is simply amazing..

+ what surprised me the most: each whole side door panel is illuminated by a set / line of small red LEDs all around the car... The effect in a dark is simply out of this world... Simply love it!

3) Rings are now lighted with LEDs, very strong ones in terms of luminosity. I am afraid the road-effect will be similar to what Audis are serving recently (is it bad, or good thing though?

4) Neon stripes on rear light illuminated look fantastic. Couldn't be better, really.

5) Fantastic job in terms of shape of the hood! What an amazing job in terms of design and aerodynamics!! One large "wave" coming from the BMW logo all the way up to the windshield, and then two huge "waves" going sideways. I thought this would be one of the strange things about this design, but after seeing it in person, and specially on the light colored car, WOW, awesome design.. honestly...


6) Side lines, and the way the door handles are cut into this side-line - another design marvel... Here, even on a dark cars - looks awesome..

7) "Bird view" cameras system: one of the coolest gadgets ever! + head-up in color and showing road-shapes = another cool thing...
Combined with fantastic NAV system with such a high resolution and responsiveness (seems like light years from my CCC, almost like going directly from Pentium4 to i7)..

8) Voice recognition (at least in German) works like a dream; now it's finally what I call talking "with" your car A true science-fiction.. How do they do these things so efficient???

9) Noise isolation: fantastic job, waaaay better achievement than in E60. I was sitting in F10 in the middle of 200 persons' crowd, all drinking, eating, talking, laughing, and still - once door is closed, you're away, almost in complete silence... Impressive.. And tempting to change E60 for F10


10) Couldn't test drive it just yet that evening, but dealer claims that ZF's new 8-step automatic achievement is the best out there for the moment, and a real piece of modern technology, possibly even more responsive and faster than DSG (or S-tronic, for this comparison) = to be verified. OK, but can't believe until I taste it

Pity there won't be neither 520d nor 535d, nor X-drive, nor Touring, nor M-Pakets right from the start, because all in all... I will not buy F10.

On the other hand, if there was F11 530xd M-Sport available now, I would definitely give it a serious consideration...
For three main reasons: interior finishing, gadgets, and the shape of hood
The rest of the car does not convince me just yet... F11 seems much more interesting now...

But well, in this regard the presentation changed my mind a little..
I came doubting that I will ever like this "smaller 7-er", I left with the impression that even though all sporty edge of E60 is gone... I would love to have all this precision, details, all new quality + all those high-tech gadgets around me...


Sorry about pics, I took them with my iPhone...

luxembourg

And few more pics

TurboT

Intresting that side door panels are illuminated by set of small lights. I think that's part of optional Ambient light package. Look nice indeed and might look even better in dark.

Ricracing

Hi luxembourg,

I saw the F10 for the first time the first of Frbruary, see this.

My comments to you "Negatives"

1) I think the F10 really brings out the best of F01 (7-series) and F07 (5-series GT) looks.

2) Yes, the front lights are not as personal as it is on the E60, but I like them.

3)The rear light looks really nice in the dark.

4) My 80 yo mom saw the first ad in the paper and said: "It looks like your car. I said wow wen I saw it (the ad)!

5) Dark colors are always very sensitive.

My comments to your "good things"

1)and 2) I say yes and yeah!

3) and 4) and 5)and 6) Still yes!

9) I have not driven the car yet, but the extra 100 kg's must be partly the sound isolation.


There will be a "Business" model available in Finland with Xenons, PDC, folded rear seats and
extended AC for and extra 990 Euros.

A 520dA Business for me.
Jet Black on Black int on Piano Black with 19" summer wheels, 18" winters and the Hi-Fi professional speakers.