babypuppi: [14] 2008 Bmw 535xi Making Daily Issue

535xi

Like the large V-8 in the 550i, BMW's all-wheel-drive system adds more than 200 pounds to the 535i. It also skews the weight balance noseward. Unlike the V-8, the 200 pounds in the 535xi don't come with an additional 60 horsepower. Although the all-wheel-drive system doesn't transform a car that was designed as a rear-driver into a big fancy WRX, it also doesn't impart the same sort of wallowing as the 550i is prone to. With the front tires splitting the work, the 535xi pulls itself out of corners steadily. It's heavier and a little slower than the rear-drive 535i but not as cumbersome as the V-8 550i.

The 535xi will also be offered as a wagon, a model we didn't get to sample during our drive.

Out with the Old (Infuriating Shift Mechanism), In with the New (Infuriating Shift Mechanism)

Accompanying the new engines for 2008 is BMW's upgraded automatic transmission, with the aggravating electronic shifter from the X5. This replaces the old shifter with an electronic lever that removes all feel, forcing the driver to rely on visual cues to determine what gear the transmission is in.

At one stop, we put the car in park, and on startup, it refused to be put into gear. The dashboard display showed the car was in park, but the park indicator on the shifter itself was blinking. After turning off and restarting the car several times, we finally figured out that we had not nudged the shifter—it has no gates but rides on a mechanism similar to Volvo's space-ball manuals—far enough to the right for it to have fully engaged park.

We tipped the lever to the right, pressed the button to set it in park, then pushed another button, tilted the lever rearward, and finally had the car in drive. Nearly 10 minutes had passed. Visions of the car burning by the side of the road preoccupied our thoughts for the next half-hour. What prompted BMW to decide there was something wrong with its old shifter we don't know.

We wonder if BMW engineers are so satisfied with their cars that they come up with projects like this to give themselves something to do. Indeed, their products have been the benchmark for so long that the cars themselves seem to exude arrogance. They are impressive machines, but before monkeying around with the automatic transmission shifters and creating iDrive 2.0, we'd like to see them fix that funky steering.

550i

Torque is as torque does, and in this thing, what torque does is kick some butt. Weight gain? About 200 pounds over a 535i. But with 360 horsepower and 20 percent more pound-feet, the 4.8-liter V-8 tugs the 5-series uphill with ease, even at lower rpm in the high gears. Downshifting is only necessary for panicked getaways or shaving unnecessary tread from the rear tires.

As torquey as the 550i is, though, it is only marginally quicker than the 535i, and as the road bent deeper into the mountains, we noticed the additional weight in the nose more and more. For all the additional power of the V-8, the overtly sporting nature of the car in six-cylinder guise is spoiled. It feels surprisingly ponderous and much larger than the smaller-engined cars—still a gratifyingly fast and powerful four-door, but no longer a sports sedan.

The twin-turbo inline-six, quite frankly, renders the 550i obsolete, a tool for ignorant status seekers and those with a vendetta against Mother Earth. If that's the way you feel, though, save yourself $10,000 and just turn on the pump at a gas station and lay the nozzle on the ground. In addition to the inline-six's better feel and responses at the limit and better fuel economy, the 535i barely trails the 550i in performance categories that matter on U.S. shores. Maybe on a German autobahn the additional power would come in handy at high speeds, but here, that 10 grand would be better funneled into heated seats and the Sport package.

528i

For the drive out of Death Valley, we switched to a 528i. We'd argue that the only time a $45,000 vehicle should feel underpowered is when the towing capacity has been exceeded by 3000 pounds, but climbing from the Death Valley floor to more than 5000 feet on an incline so gentle it looked flat outside our windows, we had to keep the 528i floored in third gear to maintain 70 mph. Although the naturally aspirated 3.0-liter gains 15 horsepower over last year's 525i, 230 is not enough to shuffle a 3600-pound sedan through the heights with any hustle. We pulled off to see if perhaps devious pranksters had hooked a U-Haul lowboy to our Bimmer. They had not.

Even as the engine gasped in the thin air, we enjoyed the chassis's great balance, which allowed us to maintain our momentum as best as possible once the road started to snake through the mountain pass. With either inline-six, the 5-series is light, tossable, controllable, and responsive. But at higher altitude, the naturally aspirated 3.0 was a disappointment.

In lower elevations, the car redeemed itself. Breathing heavier air on the flat two-lanes of California's Central Valley, the 3.0-liter six's 230 horses don't have to work quite as hard to make things happen. The 528i feels capable of matching BMW's claimed 6.5-second 0-to-60-mph huff, and it handles even high-speed passes with aplomb. Although the 528i failed at the high life, we concede that it is suitable for the (topographically) lower classes. Those 15 horsepower aren't much, but they are enough to bring the car up from the sluggish 525i to a suitable entry point into the world of BMW large-sedan cachet and neighborly lust.

BMW has made small improvements throughout the 5-series, but the real news is not the relocated window switches. It's the revised six-cylinder engines. That's why we were summoned to Las Vegas to take our turn behind the wheel of each new model (528i and 535i), as well as the mechanically unchanged 550i and M5. To read more about the mini-Gumball-like rally, click here. To read about the cars and engines, you're already in the right place.

535i

The 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six powering the 535i is the headliner of this mid-cycle makeover, a massive improvement of 45 horsepower and 80 pound-feet of torque over the engine it replaces. In the 335i, we found this engine to be a smooth and torquey dream.

Shouldered with a couple hundred extra pounds in the 5-series, the twin-turbo 3.0-liter's delights are only slightly diminished. After driving all varieties of the 5-series, this is the car that was unanimously voted the best buy. The 200-pound weight saving over the more powerful 550i results in a car that feels more balanced, with a sportier feel and greater willingness to engage and conquer corners on the roads snaking down toward Death Valley's floor, 282 feet below sea level. Even better, the 535i should be good for scampering to 60 mph in the mid-to-high-five-second range, nearly running with the far more expensive 550i.

As delightful as the engine and ride are, the car is not perfect. Although nicely weighted, the schizophrenic steering is curiously twitchy and numb just off-center. Once the car is bent into a turn, confidence builds, but when traveling in a straight line, the 535i nervously feints after every irregularity in the road. Placing the car near the outside stripe on the pavement takes more faith than it should. This, of course, is a problem present in all 5-series models, regardless of engine choice.

An additional steering problem you can now buy from BMW is an unexpected vibration in the steering wheel, like driving over a mild rumble strip. Consider it the preamble to a rumble strip, as that vibration is the tactile feedback from the lane-departure warning system, a solution that doesn't alert your friends to your woozy driving but is far more unsettling. We're about as happy to see this option in the 5-series as we were when that headache iDrive first came out.

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