Describing a BMW 5-series with rear-wheel drive and about 400 hp from a V-8 conjures a specific memory for most car enthusiasts: the legendary. But since that model went out of production in 2003, BMW has armed itself to the teeth in the horsepower wars, and these specs now describe a run-of-the-mill 550i. When 5 = 7 The 550i starts at $60,575 (with options, our automatic test car topped $75,000 and the manual neared $70,000, but more on that later), reaffirming its place as a car for the well-to-do.

Even though it doesn’t offer the cavernous accommodations of the 7-series with which it shares some architecture, the 550i is in most other ways a smaller 7-series. And that’s no bad thing, especially if luxury is atop your priorities list. Power comes from BMW’s twin-turbocharged, direct-injected 4.4-liter V-8, and delivery of the 400 hp and 450 lb-ft of torque is so smooth and quiet when hooked to the new ZF eight-speed automatic (a no-cost option) that you’ll need to have the radio off and your lead foot on to hear so much as a growl from the exhaust. The manual-equipped car, on the other hand, is not afraid to speak up, growing louder as you near redline.

The BMW 530e gives drivers the best of both worlds with the latest eco version and is expected to win a significant amount of extra sales. Conexant Modem Driver Xp Download here. Feb 19, 2008. Alphabet: BMW's own spaghetti soup of a leasing company – or a serious multi-marque player? So we use Deloitte's wholelife cost tool to identify the greenest cars; we have Fuel Sense, a driver's guide to more economical driving. There are lots of little tricks – like turning off your engine if stationary. It’s good shit, is what I’m saying. Modified production cars on closed public roads with a co-driver reading “pace notes” to the driver describing.

At the test track, the autobox edged out the manual by 0.3 second in the sprint to 60 mph, at a mere 4.8 seconds—the manual’s wider gearing and trickiness at launch account for the difference—but it was a draw by the time they passed the quarter-mile, with both cars arriving in 13.1 seconds at a swift 109 mph. For comparison, the 2011 automatic trumped the significantly lighter last-gen 550i by 0.4 second to 60 mph, and it bests the current rear-drive 750i by the same amount. Adaptive Drive, or HAL, for Short There’s no way to describe the driving experience in this car without addressing the network of supercomputers, which are mostly part of options packages, and its implications. What this 550i does differently from the old is allow the driver to adjust suspension settings rather than be forced to accept a near-flawlessly calibrated balance of luxury and sport out of the box. When kitted as both our cars were, with the $2700 Dynamic Handling package and $2200 Sport package, the 550i experience can be tailored using the capo di tutti capi —or “boss of all bosses,” as the Italian mobsters used to say—a system called adaptive drive. It’s a set of preferences, controlled with center-console buttons or through the iDrive interface, for most of the car’s driving characteristics, from ride to throttle response to handling.

Although the discerning driver (or hopeless tinkerer) can fine-tune these through iDrive, it’s easiest to leave the system in one of its four main settings: comfort, normal, sport, and sport plus. The differences among the settings are mostly linear, with each setting sportier than the last, and they all do a fine job of managing the 550i. Thanks to active roll stabilization, the 550i remains more or less flat during vigorous cornering, but its weight gain of more than 300 pounds over the last 550i is undoubtedly felt. Yes, the new dynamic suspension does a good job of managing road scars—BMW touts that it can appropriately adjust rear-wheel damping in time to handle a pothole the front wheel has just hit—but it doesn’t deliver the wafty ride you might expect in a Lexus. And it’s not super at being sporty, either, being less sure-footed than the 3-series and exhibiting a little wheel shudder at the limit when road surfaces aren’t glassy. The steering in the 550i is by far its greatest downfall. The electrically assisted system is linear, but it feels artificially heavy and is devoid of feedback, even when it’s supposedly been livened in the sport or sport-plus settings.

Coming from BMW, this is a huge disappointment, and the steering of the 550i can’t hold a candle to the fine feel provided by the tiller in the. At legal speeds, the steering in the 550i isn’t so lifeless as to be unforgivable, but it takes time to get used to. When pushing the car, though, we find that the lack of feedback leaves one guessing the precise amount of input needed to control the vehicle. Between the dull steering and the easy-as-pie computerized handling, the 550i offers a fast journey but a driving experience that lacks the drama, involvement, and excitement we expect from BMW. We walked away from the manual 550i with a slightly better impression of the 2011 5-series, but it simply boiled down to feeling more connected to the car through the gearbox, something the automatic can’t deliver. Business-Class Accommodations, Business-Class Pricing Inside the 550i’s cockpit, coddled by outstanding fit and finish, you’ll find creature comforts that would shame a luxury spa. The 18-way power seats included in the Sport package make a Herman Miller chair feel like a pile of cinder blocks and save you the shame of the standard 10-way thrones.