BMW M5 2011 Review - International

BMW M5

The astonishing thing isn’t the way the new F10 M5 BMW accelerates to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds. Its predecessor was, after all, only 0.3 slower to the mark and you expect these things to just keep improving.

No, the astonishing thing about the F10 M5 is the way it accelerates from 100 to 200km/h. And beyond!

Pop out to pass a car – or a line of cars, it makes no difference – and you find yourself an astonished spectator as the head-up display flashes the double tonne onto the windscreen in front of you. And the number just keeps growing in a blur. It’s seamless and strong, surging from 100-200km/h in 8.6 seconds. And it does it without any apparent exertion...

You’ll read about this gadget in more detail when motoring.com.au's Uncle Kenny Gratton lands here next month to crunch out a gripping full tech rundown and launch test, but in the meantime, welcome to the introduction to the repowered, re-gearboxed, re-energised BMW M5.

The big news for purists is that it’s the first turbocharged M5, largely because it started with a six-cylinder engine way back in 1984, picked up a V8 in its third generation, went to a V10 last time and BMW just couldn’t keep stuffing more cylinders into it.

Not wanting to mess with everything the car stands for, BMW has left it as a rear-driver (though its power and torque could easily justify an all-paw system), partly because it couldn’t be done technically and partly because, at 1870kg, it’s already 100kg heavier than the old E60 car...

The M5 has developed into a brand all its own and it has always been touted as the flagship of all that’s good and strong and technically advanced within BMW. That’s great, except that it has faltered somewhat over the last few years as its delicate balance was chipped away by ever-heavier engines and, in its last generation, a ridiculously complicated gearbox that left plenty of people cursing and some people chuckling -- the latter, especially, over Affalterbach way.

There, the AMG crew made cars with hybridised automatic gearboxes, so an E63 driver just had to step on the loud pedal and it would go, time after time. Not so the last M5, which demanded cooling down time between standing sprints so the clutch in its paddle-shift, robotized SMG gearbox could have a Bex and a good lie down.

The E60 Series' high-revving V10 was also a far cry from the M5’s origins, which began with the E28 model in 1984. Though never shipped to Australia, it had 210kW of power from its straight-six, punched to 245km/h and ran to 100km/h in 6.5 seconds.

The first one we got was the E34 M5, which was born in 1988 to the thunderous howls of a 3.6-litre, 232kW in-line six that threw it to 100km/h in 6.3 seconds on its way to a limited 250km/h top speed. And it was a jewel of a thing. M followed that up with the E39 V8, which opened the door to real power, presumably because the nuances of balanced handling were lost on the Americans. It had 294kW and cut a second from the 100km/h sprint, but remained limited at 250km/h. Still, they shifted 20,711 of the things in sedan and wagon form.

That lead to the last one, the E60 with its screaming V10 punching out a whopping 373kW and revving to 8250rpm. It could roar to 100km/h in 4.7 seconds and, unlimited (though Australia’s were all limited), it would run to 305km/h.

But it wasn’t universally loved. It had very little torque below 6000rpm and so it wasn’t flexible around town. It also rode brutally and the gearbox was jerky and not broadly adored. Its issues narrowed its useful operating range, to the point where it wasn’t as friendly a day-to-day proposition as its predecessors had been. That had to change.

It has.

Besides the engine, the new F10 M5 comes standard with three different suspension settings, three different engine/throttle settings and three different steering settings and these, as much as anything else, help broaden the M5’s useful performance envelope to include city driving, mountain driving, highway driving and everything in between.

And, what’s more, you can combine them in any way you like, then set your preferences into two quick-hit buttons on the steering wheel, which lets you individualize one for urban work and one for that winding road you love so much.

It works as well in practice as it does in theory, and we found our preferred open-road setting was to have the steering on Sport+, the suspension on Comfort and the ESP/powertrain settings on Sport. The steering isn’t at its best in Comfort, because the fat wheel rim doesn’t seem to fit with the light, languid response.

So that’s the ride complaints taken care of.

Then there’s the gearbox. It’s now a double-clutch unit with seven speeds and, with rear drive being branded a tradition that shouldn’t be fiddled with (yet), it now hooks up to an active differential on the rear axle that is little short of brilliant.

You can dial its shifts up from long and languid to short and sharp but they’re never rough and you can launch it from a standing start, time after time. There is still the scroll button there to dial up your gearbox aggressiveness, but there are just three choices now, not the multitude of yore.

At 100km/h, the M5 is pulling just 1550rpm and that only lifts to 2000 at 130. This engine is gunna get bored in Australia… And whoever M left in charge of the gearing was a lazy bugger. On redline upshifts, it changes at 60km/h, 120, 180 and 240, then it hits the limiter, but will run to 305, presumably with a 5-6 shift at 300…

A big car, the M5 shrinks around you when you’re attacking a series of corners and, on the Ascari private race track in Spain, it shows it’s also pretty adept at lurid powerslides, incredible direction changes and up to 1.3g of lateral acceleration.

In slower corners, the active diff works hard (and you can feel it working hard) to turn normal understeer situations into pure, straight-line drive that’s much more entertaining and a whole lot faster and safer, too.

And, as part of a push by BMW board member, Ian Robertson (and at least two international correspondents), the M5 finally scores a good-looking set of brake calipers. There is a pair of six-piston, fixed monobloc calipers clamping the 400mm front rotors and they look a whole lot better than BMW’s traditional, utilitarian single-piston units. Work better, too.

Tick that off, then.

And then there’s the engine -- a heavily modified version of the 4.4-litre, twin-turbo motor that has already found favour in the X5M and X6M.

To watch a dance of animated Bavarians, you only have to suggest it’s a shame the M5 got lumped with a truck motor.

“It’s not the same engine,” M5 engine boss, Albert Biermann, defended.

“There are major differences, including new turbos that compress more air with less boost (0.9 bar versus 1.0), and it’s got Valvetronic on it… We have a different exhaust manifold that works better and we did a lot of work with a bigger diameter air intake to reduce the losses on the air ducting.

“The pistons are different, the block is the same and the crankcase is the same, but the compression ratio is 10:1 and it’s only 9.3 in the X6 M. The electrics are completely different.

“Also, in the X6 M, there is a differential in the front of the engine. We looked at the feasibility for an XDrive M5 but this gives us the best compromise between longitudinal and lateral dynamics,” he insisted.

With turbochargers now identified as clearly the most expensive part of the engine, the M5 has almost the same throttle response as it did when it was an atmo engine. Almost.

Biermann explained that direct injection gave them the chance, in Sport+, to remove all damping when they closed the injectors (ie: when you lift off the throttle), so the engine reacts much faster than turbocharged motors of old.

But wait, there’s more…
The M5 wasn’t the only major unveil in Seville, because BMW also showed a host of upgraded engines for the 5 Series, including a return to the 528i.

The once-revered nameplate is back, though it’s no longer a sweet-spinning inline six, because BMW has downsized it to a 2.0-litre TwinPower (twin-scroll) turbo four-cylinder, with double Vanos variable valve timing and lift, and direct fuel injection.

It will be the most powerful of a range of three four-cylinder, 5 Series models, and it will be sold worldwide, including Australia, by the end of the year.

The 528i will boast 180kW – not bad from 2.0 litres – backed up by 350Nm of torque and a combined fuel consumption of 6.5L/100km while still hitting 100km/h in 6.3 seconds. Not bad, when you think each of those numbers is, respectively, five per cent higher, 13 per cent higher, 14 per cent lower and six per cent faster than its [six-cylinder] predecessor.

The 520i is slower, cheaper and – only just – more frugal. Essentially the same engine, it has 135kW/270Nm of torque and uses 6.4L/100km.

There is also a 525d diesel in the wings, with 450Nm of torque and 4.8L/100km from a 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel four, along with a 520d ED (efficient dynamics) edition with extreme economy which promises 380Nm and 4.5L/100km.

Oh, and there’s an ActiveHybrid 5 Series on the books for next year as well, combining an electric motor and an inline six-cylinder petrol engine for a combined 250kW of power and 6.4L/100km.

Plenty happening at BMW then…

Engine: 4.4-litre, twin-turbo, 90-degree V8, direct fuel injection, double Vanos, Valvetronic, twin-scroll, in-V-mounted turbos
Power: 412kW at 6000-7000rpm?
Torque: 680Nm at 1500-5750rpm?
Weight: 1870kg?0-100km/h: 4.4sec?0-200km/h: 13.0sec
Top speed: 250km/h limited (305km/h unlimited)?
Fuel consumption: 9.9L/100km
CO2 Emissions: 232g/km


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